Examples Of Germanic Heroicism In Beowulf

Various works of literature portray the idea of a hero in some ways. The image created depends on the type of society of community being depicted in the specific literature theme. Currently, we have witnessed an influx of movies, books and other visual arts that contain historical ideas of events that took place in the past. That has foreseen a large number of critics as to whether the artworks depict the historical themes appropriately and well enough or it is just for show and ratings. When it comes to historical topics, the most depicted occurrences include the heroic idealism of different communities in the past. The primary drive of this paper is to analyze the works of John Gardner in two of his most famous literary works the Beowulf …show more content…
That is a poem that depicts the hero codes of the society, the values, way of life as well as the expectations of this young warriors. The Germanic heroic ideal borrows most of its notions from the German folklore which encompass the traditions of the people of the given society from the past till now. Nevertheless, there are some similarities between the Germanic heroic ideal and the American heroic ideal. Different works of literature have employed the theme of the Germanic hero as the main protagonist in their scripts. It is thus appropriate to describe a hero as a warrior who shows grave concern about the reputation that precedes him as well as fame and the responsibilities he holds in the political …show more content…
The book Grendel retells both a classic story while outlaying the concept of anti-hero. Grendel is a character in Beowulf though he gets depicted as an archetype. Archetypes represent recurrent symbols in literature and art and get described as an original model that gets used as the prototype for making similar things. It can encompass either a statement, behavior pattern or image used for the creation of related objects later in life. It is thus a frequently used stylistic device. The author has many purposes of making Grendel very likable in the book. While in the poem Grendel got depicted as a monster full of vices and hate thus got slain by Beowulf, this other book has Grendel as the main character. The book brings out his role as that of a solitary creature. In this books, he seeks the understanding of various aspects of life as to him the world is meaningless. He is thus very keen and conservative thus provides different commentaries about the human civilization that he always battles. The difference is that in this books, he shows his human qualities and that is what makes him very likable to the readers. The description of Grendel acted as the source of different critics and debates among