1 post tagged “hemmingway”

I took an hour today to read the story of Beowulf in its entirety, just to see what in it was worth teaching in my upcoming world Civilization class. It is a story about a young and confident warrior. Beowulf reminds me somewhat of Michelangelo’s David only with beefcake muscles and a boar tusked helmet. He is confident and even cocky. No challenge fazes him and no deed that needs to be done can be denied him. And he clearly cares more for the stories that will be told about his deeds than he does for the deeds himself (ergo, he fights the monster, Grendel, with no weapons).

LISTEN TO AN EXCERPT FROM THE ORIGINAL HERE

I confess, it is hard to find something in the young Beowulf that speaks to me outside of this character trait of fundamental confidence. He hears that King Hrothgar has a problem that his own men of valour cannot solve. He embarks in a boat to come offer his services in exchange for fame, good mead, and a sizable tip. What inspires me if anything is that he is a man who understands the need for risk and for action. Beowulf is not a writer of poems but a subject of them. “A soldier should know the difference between words and deed and keep that knowledge clear” he says. “Fate saves the living when they drive away death by themselves.”

“Sometimes” says the narrarator of the poem, “a king's man, a warrior covered in glory who knew the old traditions, would be reminded of an ancient song, and he would call up words adorned in truth. The man would thinkof Beowulf's deeds and quickly compose a skillful tale in words.”

The more intriguing part of the poem for me has to do with Beowulf’s great challenge as an old man. In his youth, the challenges were clear fights between good and evil. Grendel and his mother are evil in origin, in appearance, and in deed. No one debates the morality of Beowulf’s decision to rip Grendel’s clawed arm off and drag him piece by piece to hell. And no one debates the morality of doing his mother in either. But the challenge of Beowulf’s old age is to avenge himself on a dragon who is in fowl temper because someone has pilfered from his dragon hoard. And yet the danger is real and Beowulf summons the courage of his younger days to take the dragon on in single combat.

He does not plan to live his post midlife crisis any differently than his pre-midlife crisis for “Beowulf and Fear were strangers.” As Beowulf boasts: "I ventured many battles in my youth; now, old, I will seek another, try again for glorious deeds, if that avenger will come out."

The Old Man and the Sea

Ernest Hemingway

He reminds me of Hemmingway's character, Santiago, in The Old Man and the Sea who "resolves to sail out beyond the other fishermen to where the biggest fish promise to be." Both Santiago and Beowulf seem to understand that one will eventually be defeated in life. It is only a matter of time. The only question we really face in life is not so much "to be defeated or not to be defeated". Eventually we will be. The only real question is "what can we achieve as we are defeated? Beowulf takes the dragon's gold to distribute it to his people and for use in building a funeral tower to remember him by.

It is here however that the theological implications of Medieval combat come into play. When Beowulf had assaulted the monster and his monster mommy, God was on his side. As the storyteller puts it, “God’s dread loom was woven with defeat for the monster.” But in the end, the battle with the dragon is fraught with peril for Beowulf because this time, God fights against him.

Though I live in the 21rst century and am not inclined by disposition to spend mylife ripping the appendages of gruesome fiends off their bodies to hang in my mead hall, the story still raises questions. How does one find challenges worthy of them?  How much risk is too much? Where does confidence come from? How does one generate it in the middle to later years of their lives when they do not have a Beowulfian resume or ballads that have been sung in their honor?

In a commentary about Hemmingway and his character, Santiago, we are reminded that heroic literature can find itself set in any time and place:

"Skills that involved great displays of strength captured -Hemingway's imagination, and his fiction is filled with fishermen, -big-game hunters, bullfighters, prizefighters, and soldiers. -Hemingway's fiction presents a world peopled almost exclusively by men—men who live most successfully in the world through displays of skill. In Hemingway's world, mere survival is not enough. To elevate oneself above the masses, one must master the rules and rituals by which men are judged."

Question for Comment: Must these same skills capture our immaginations as well? Or is the day for Beowulfian/Santiogan men over? Who is to say?