Literary Criticism Of Beowulf's Poem 'Slaying Monsters'

Acocella, Joan. "Slaying Monsters." The New Yorker 2 June 2014: 70. Student Edition. Web. 14 Nov. 2015. This literary criticism is about how a man named John Ronald Reuel that many encouraged him to translate the poem Beowulf since the author of this poem is anonymous and unknown. Although he did publish the piece of literature, he did not publish it. Eventually, his son published the piece of literature forty years after the death of his father. Making Beowulf a popular poem at that time. The author of this criticism describes the character Beowulf as a “noble, brave and a strong character” and that “each of his hands has a grip equal to that of thirty men.” This criticism also states that Beowulf has neither had children nor a wife. It also states that as Beowulf was in his way to help Hrothgar, he was traveling with twelve other knights. This would help my essay by explaining that Beowulf was not only by himself by with many others. Just like an army of soldiers, but killing three different monsters made Beowulf stand out among the twelve knights. In addition, this criticism describes how powerful and brave Beowulf is because one of the monsters, Grendel, has human characteristics but is bigger in size which makes it harder to …show more content…
But we do know that it was most likely written by a scop. Which is a poet, singers or musicians who traveled from places to places to perform on stage. We also do know the exact location where the poem was written. It was written in England along with the Anglo Saxon Civilization. The language of this time was known as English which is way different from our modern day English. By the time, this piece of literature was written, the people of the Anglo Saxons converted the poem into Christianity. Religion is also identified in this poem with its history and