ShmoopTube

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We speak student!

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Beowulf a la Shmoop

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The Hero

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So, unlike most contemporary heroes,

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Beowulf is anything but humble.

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We talked about boasting,

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and that that's just kind of part of the culture.

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Talk to us about the man of the hour, Beowulf.

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How does he boast and how is he a hero?

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Sure, yeah. Beowulf is not a humble guy.

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And when you think of

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heroes now in literature, we think of

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Harry Potter or Katniss Everdeen.

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These people do not wanna be in the limelight.

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Katniss is, you know, all about flying under the radar.

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Harry does not want to be the kid with the lightning scar.

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They don't want this.

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Beowulf wants it.

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He comes and he takes it.

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He's actually an outsider

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and he comes in - he knows that Hrothgar's having this issue

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with Grendel - and he comes in and says,

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"Hey, guess what? I'm gonna do this.

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I'm gonna be your hero."

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It's not a matter of being, you know, arrogant.

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It's not supposed to show us that Beowulf

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is pretentious. We're not supposed to dislike him for this.

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This is just part of the cultural values

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that existed at the time.

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And we have to continue to remind ourself of that

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as we read Beowulf.

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That everything that's in here --

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Especially because it's an epic poem,

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which is all about displaying cultural values.

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Everything that's in here displays some sort of

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value that was important to the society.

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This boasting that --

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When we think of boasting,

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we think about, kind of, bragging, you know,

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to your friends about something awesome you did.

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In the time that the story takes place,

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it was actually much more ritualized.

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Meaning it wasn't just that he went around

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kind of being like, "Hey, check it out. I'm awesome."

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He actually declared, "Here's what I'm going to do."

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And he said, "I am going to kill Grendel.

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And I'm going to save Hrothgar and protect his territory."

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Then, if you were successful,

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if you're, you know, if you've lived up to your boast,

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then it showed that you were a hero

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and that you were worthy of your soul.

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And Beowulf was not very well respected

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in the land he came from,

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so he's kind of trying to prove himself.

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And again, this is something that is respected in that society.

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We aren't supposed to look at Beowulf and be like,

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"Oh, who does he think he is?"

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We're supposed to say, "Oh, wow." You know,

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"This guy is a real hero."

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So, again, it's really all about placing it in cultural context.

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Is Beowulf a humble hero?

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Why or why not?

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Why did Beowulf want to defeat Grendel anyway?

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What did boasting mean in Beowulf's culture?

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What does it mean today?

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How do today's heroes differ from the heroes of Beowulf's time?

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How are they similar?

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Hey, check it out. I'm awesome.

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