The Epic Poem, Beowulf - Is Beowulf History or Myth? :: Epic of Beowulf Essay

Is Beowulf History or Myth? Many of the characters and episodes and material artifacts mentioned poetically in Beowulf argon alike presented to us from archaeological sources and from various written sources, especially Scandinavian records, so adding credibility to the historicity of the numbers. But it is obvious that Beowulf, Grendel and the Dragon clearly belong to the smorgasbord of myth. In his essay The Digressions in Beowulf David Wright says Another effect of what are called the historic elements in Beowulf the subsidiary stories of the Danes and the Geats is to give the poem greater depth and verisimilitude. Hrothgar, the danish pastry king, is a historical character, and the site of his palace of Heorot has been identified with the village of Leire on the island of Seeland in Denmark. The Geat king Hygelac really existed, and his unlucky expedition against the Franks, referred to several clock in the poem, is mentioned by Gregory of Tours in the Historia Francorum and has been given the approximate date of AD521 (127). Does the supra not establish in our minds an historically sound footing for the poem? I suggested in an earlier paper that the Beowulf poets incentive for opus an epic about sixth-century Scyldings may have had something to do with the fact that, by the 890s at least, Heremod, Scyld, Healfdene, and the rest, were taken to be the common ancestors both of the Anglo-Saxon purplish family and of the ninth-century Danish immigrants, the Scaldingi (Frank 60). Is not universal acceptance as true statement in fact not a proof that the geneologies of the work are factual? With the exception of the hero, this literary scholar seems to agree He Beowulf appears nameless outside the poem, while virtually e rattling other character is gear up in early legends (Chickering 252). Consider the following royal burial of the Danish king, and how unrealistic it appears Scyld then departed at the appointed time, still very strong, into the keeping of the Lord. They laid down the king they had dearly loved, their statuesque ring-giver, in the center of the ship, the mighty by the mast. Great treasure was there, ardent gold and silver, gems from far lands (26-37) But we know from archaeological evidence that the royal and aristocratic milieu of Beowulf with its lavish burials and gold-adorned armor can no durable be dismissed as poetic exaggeration or sept memories of an age of gold before the Anglo-Saxons came to England (Cramp 114).