Epic of Beowulf :: Epic of Beowulf Essays

I drive just completed the construe of Beowulf, which was translated by Burton Raffel.1)     Beowulf is an extremely exciting and fascinating story about a disposition who lived in medieval Europe. The shocking thing for me about this run was to watch out that it is the earliest poem in a modern European language. Beowulf is to the English what Homer and the Odyssey were to the Greeks. Although this is the earliest poem, it is still fun and exciting to read. I didnt believe that a poem which has been around for more than twelve centuries, could cargo hold my interest. I was wrong. The book is filled with more blood and guts past the average summer horror flick. After the battle with Grendel, the monster which has been desolation the danish pastry countryside and killing countless men, Beowulf makes sure that all people realise that he had injured the great monster. It is translated that, "...no Dane doubted the victory, for the proof, hanging high fr om the r laters where Beowulf had hung it, was the monsters arm, claw and articulatio humeri and all" (Raffel, 49). It was the shocking use of detail and exciting battles that was left with me when I finished the book. I guess all books, regardless of their age back end still be fun and entertaining to read.2)     Good literature has a very precise definition for me. I sample a fade of literature on three different criteria, 1) does it have memorable characters, 2) does the work take me to a place and let me experience things that I have never experienced before, and 3) will the work stay with me long after I have completed reading it. This is the criteria on which I judge a book and according to this, I believe that Beowulf should be considered "goodness" literature.I always ask myself, when I am done reading a book, did the book have memorable characters. In Beowulf, the characters were memorable. A venial character in the book, the king of the Danes, named Hrothgar, is a character who sticks out greatly in my mind. Hrothgar was a king of the Danes and built for them a huge mead vestibule in which men were able to eat drink and be merry. It was hence that the great monster, Grendel, came and destroyed the utopia which was Herot by eating and feasting on the Danish warriors. Hrothgar sticks out in my mind because I could envision him, in the duration before Beowulf came to the Danes, in anger and despair over this monster that wouldnt resolution killing his soldiers and friends.