ENG202Y5 Lecture Notes - Lanval, Narrative Poetry, Flyting
Document Summary
Wergild = man gold (fee-money) (line 470) Beowulf"s father swore an oath to heorogar (heorargar settled a feud for him) Shows beowulf to not be prideful an subtly advices on how to be a great king. Also cautions him about old age (it will be harder to rule as you get older) The epic" is historical, time is compressed. Digression; epics speak to one another and link together some how and intersects. An idea that fate plays a key role in this text. First 2200 lines of poem focuses on beouwulf as a younger guy. Beouwulf offers a type of thesis (line 573-575) Beouwulf fights grendel and cuts his arm off. Described in many different ways (he, it, thing, toll, ogre etc) 1557 beouwulf realizes that his sword won"t work. Found a larger sword, and assumed that this sword may work on a giant like grendel. Beouwulf returns to heorargar to tell him about this successfulness.
