Beowulf 9

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in its own way. Though few can clearly understand the value of the poem, we must realize that judging the poem from a twentieth century point of view would be unjust to the author or authors of Beowulf.
One of the most pleasing trends in recent old English studies has been the increasing awareness of the truth and importance of this simple observation. It is one which often has been overlooked by scholars and the ever growing critics. These people prefer to regard Beowulf as a source book for historians. Some people tend to overlook the meanings of Beowulf and perceive them in a wrong manner. In a profound lecture given by J.R.R.Tolkien in 1963, he tried to do what many people were trying to do, make sense of Beowulf. He gave an amusing and persuasive summary of the variety of theories of Beowulf’s poet’s ideas and aims.
Tolkien said, “Beowulf is a half baked native epic which was killed by Latin learning, it is feeble and incompetent as a ...

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Swedes within the fifth and sixth centuries A.D.. The North Germanic “Heroic” ages reflect much of the medieval Icelandic prose and poetry. The Danes lived in what is now called Denmark and the southern tip of Sweden. Hrothgar, whose great hall was somewhere on the island of Zealand, is their king in the beginning of the poem. Other characters are accounted for in the course of the narrative in the rest of the poem. The Swedes, whose hostilities among themselves and against the Geats through three generations are featured in the installments during the final third of the poem, live in Sweden north of the Great Lakes.(Rebsamen; 38-35)
The action of Beowulf takes place in ...

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