Beowulf Commentary

Jake Wythers
Ms Peifer
10 IB Hour 5
12/13/08

Beowulf Commentary

“But the earl-troop’s leader was not inclined
to allow his caller to depart alive:
he did not consider that life of much account
to anyone anywhere. Time and again,
Beowulf’s warriors worked to defend
Their lord’s life, laying about them
As best they could with their ancestral blades.
Stalwart in action, they kept striking out
On every side, seeking to cut
straight to the soul. When they joined the struggle
there was something they could not have known at the
time,
that no blade on earth, no blacksmith’s art
could ever damage their demon opponent.
He had conjured the harm from the cutting edge
of ever weapon. But his going away
out of this world and the days of his life
would be agony to him, and his alien spirit
would travel far into the fiends’ keeping."

This section of Beowulf is important because it characterizes Grendel as a nearly unstoppable foe, a monster who can’t be defeated by ordinary people. In turn, this makes Beowulf and his feat of slaying Grendel more extraordinary. Another interesting thing about this passage is that right after describing the power of Grendel, his inevitable spiritual doom is also foretold.
“No blade on earth, no blacksmith’s weapon could ever damage their demon opponent.” (Heaney 795) This sentence is critical in the passage and in the whole book because it tells the audience that no weapon could harm Grendel. This would make killing him a daunting task, because all the society knew to fight with were blacksmith’s weapons. By defeated such a foe with his bare hands, Beowulf becomes even more legendary and heroic.
This passage, like much of Beowulf, makes use of alliteration in nearly every line. The repeat of consonants calls attention to certain words, especially when read aloud. “Stalwart in action, they kept striking out on every side, seeking to cut straight to the soul.” (780)This sentence in particular has a lot of alliteration. The reader tends to focus more on the S words in the passage, and as such a clearer picture is formed in the reader’s head of the image being described.
Another important literary device in these lines is the usage of kennings. By replacing a common word with a combination of more interesting words, description of objects becomes much more interesting and powerful. For example, “ancestral blades” (796) used in place of “swords”, is a more captivating illustration. A reader becomes more absorbed into the text if there is engaging vocabulary such as this.
This passage was very powerful because of the damnation of the demon’s soul. It is very fascinating to read of the near invincibility of a creature in one line and then to read that he is doomed to suffer eternally in the next. This passage thus provided an engaging contrast between the two main parts of Grendel’s character.

Works Cited
Heaney, Seamus. "Beowulf Fights Grendel" Beowulf. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000.