Description: 

     This blog will help you to analyze the story of Epic of Beowulf Translated by Burton Raffel. We made this for you to be able to easily understand what the story is trying to convey. The main goals of this blog are to determine the elements of the story in the given selection, help you to construct your own reflection about the story and express views and opinions about Beowulf's being a hero and give your own standards for a person to be considered a modern hero.

Before we start the discussion, try to rearrange the jumbled letters inside the parenthesis to come up with the word that means the same with the underlined word/phrase in each sentences. Later on, you will know how to pass your answer in this activity. For now, just write your answer on a paper.

1.  You can always turn to your best friend who always knows how to cheer you up in times of pain or misery.  ( alfciitofn )
2. Watching the beautiful sunset at the Manila Bay gives a feeling of comfort and relief. ( alceos )
3. To protect himself during battle, a warrior wears a flexible body armor made of metal. ( llam )
4. In ancient England, a warrior's victory was celebrated in banquet halls with feasting, drinking liquor especially mead, long speeches and giving of gifts. ( deam-shall )
5. In the epic Beowulf, the monster seeks the hall warrior while the young soldiers are sleeping. ( sentah )

Before we formally discuss the today's topic, let's have a review about the elements of a short story. Just click the link below:

https://hrsbstaff.ednet.ns.ca/engramja/elements.html

Now, just read the story of Beowulf translated by Burton Raffel first. Just click the link below and click the "read the translation" and you can find the whole story:

http://www.sparknotes.com/nofear/lit/beowulf/

As you read on the elements of a short story let's differentiate those elements in the epic of Beowulf.

1. The characters ofcourse beowulf is the protagonist or the hero of the story. He is a geatish warrior that is famous for killing grendel and his mother.
Next is grendel, he is a man eating, demon like that is descendant of cain. He was defeated by beowulf.
Grendel's mother is a swamp hag that is more likely a human. She avenged the death of her son grendel.
And last of the main character is the King Hrothgar, the wise and aged king of danes. He was acting as the mentor of beowulf.

2. Plot

The story starts when King Hrothgar the king of Denmark build a mead hall called Heorot where his warriors gather to drink and receive their rewards. The noise disturbs the demon like monster named Grendel. Because of what happened grendel attacks every night and kill many warrior that dare to fight him. The news spread and one Geatish warrior named Beowulf dare to fight the monster. He sail with his men to end their suffering. King Hrothgar accepted the offer of Beowulf to defeat the monster. After the feast the monster came and it face Beowulf without any weapon. Beowulf took a chance to tear his arm off and Grendel vanished through the swamp. As a trophy he hang Grendel's arm in the mead hall. They celebrate the victory of Beowulf. The king give him many gifts and treasures, but another threat is approaching. Grendel's mother a Swamphag came to avenge her son. She killed Aeschere the loyal adviser of the king. When Beowulf receive the news he go to the swamp or the lair of Grendel's mother. He dip into the swamp and when he was near to the center he was attack by the monster, but Grendel manage to kill her with a sword. As a reward he bring with him the head of Grendel and it took the kingdom to celebrate their freedom.

3. Conflict
There were two main conflict in the story first is when Grendel attack the kingdom and second is when Grendel's mother avenged her sons death.

4.Theme
Some themes that can be a guide is the loyalty of Beowulf to the people and when he differentiate the good king into a good warrior.

5. Setting
The setting of time is around 500 a.d. and the narrative is somehow earlier that era.
The setting of place is in Denmark and Geatland but the place is now know as southern Sweden.


Here is a video provided that you can watch, it will help you to easily understand the Epic of Beowulf.

Evaluation

Construct your own reflection about the story and pass it together with your answer in the first activity and upload it on Facebook and tag us Earl Santos and Antonio Buenaventura.. Reflect to this guided questions

1. How did the Hrothgar act as a king?
2. Why Beowulf help the king?
3. Why did Grendel's mother do not help Grendel to dominate the mead-hall?
4. If you were Beowulf what preparations do you do before facing the monster?
5. How will you compare yourself to Beowulf as part of this generation?

Thank you for spending your time reading this blog. We hope that you gathered a lot of information and had fun while doing the activities. Leave a comment or suggestion.