On Death in Beowulf

Having flipped through Beowulf again after our last meeting, one thing I notice that distinguishes the environment from everything else in the poem is death. Death is inevitable for everyone and everything in the poem, except for the elements, which alone endure throughout time (the tide is even, as we discussed briefly in class, linguistically connected to time). The subject of death, obviously, links Beowulf up with "The Wanderer," although that poem seems more concerned with the inescapability of human sorrow and suffering than death. Sorrow and suffering, rather than death, is also a major feature of "Aber Cuawg Illness," which has me, like Kelly and Matt, wondering about genre. Is there something crucial about the fact that Beowulf is obsessed with death, whereas these other "elegaic" poems are about the sorrows of life?

Regarding death in Beowulf, however, there was one passage that particularly caught my eye. The speaker has just described Beowulf's encounter with Grendel, and the Danes have set about repairing their hall. "Only the roof remained unscathed," we are told, "by the time the guilt-fouled fiend turned tail/ in despair of his life." Then the poem does something strange. In commenting on the doom of Grendel (and, perhaps, the once-indestructable hall), the speaker says that "death is not easily/ escaped from by anyone:/ all of us with souls, earth-dwellers/ and children of men, must make our way/ to a destination already ordained/ where the body, after the banqueting,/ sleeps on its deathbed" (ll.999-1007). The especially odd line here is "all of us with souls," implying Grendel, who (whatever he is) is not human, also has a soul, as do all "earth-dwellers." All things on earth are given to death and decay. In the end, both Beowulf and the dragon "face the end of [their] days/ in this mortal world" (ll. 2342-43).

Significantly, it isn't just humans and animals that expire in Beowulf, but objects, too. Heorot, the great hall, is susceptible to destruction by fire. Things made of iron are likewise apt to fail, like the sword in ll. 1605 ff., which "wilt[s] into gory icicles," or like any number of Beowulf's other swords. Even the dragon's treasure, in the end, is eaten by rust, after its "thousand winters under ground," and being "under a spell" (ll. 3047, ff.). Does this mean that these artificial objects also have souls (can we have a Marxist reading of an Old English poem?)? Or is the point simply that the only things in the world that are sure to remain are those elemental substances: fire, water, stone, winter air, and time?

Whatever the case, the categories operating in Beowulf are not simply "human" and "non-human," but might be better characterized as "earth" and "earth-dwellers," or perhaps "time-bound, fated," and "timeless, enduring." Death and decay is what seems to separate the environment from those that occupy it, the "earth-dwellers." Death is also the condition of having a soul, though any sense of an afterlife (save, perhaps, in fame) is missing. So the environment is that soulless, blank canvas on which the actions of "earth-dwellers" takes place, and yet it is also the one thing that will, after all is done, remain. The environment is passive space, but also the active agent whereby "earth-dwellers" meet their final fate.

This relationship does not seem to be an issue for anyone in Beowulf; there is no sense of having a "right relationship" with the environment. Rather, this relationship is the condition of existence, and one must come to terms with the ultimate endurance of the earth as opposed to the fleeting time one has as an "earth-dweller." Maybe we could read passages that warn against trusting in technology (e.g. well-crafted swords and mead-halls) as warning against attempts to put off death, which is inevitable. Finally, all must, like Grendel's mother, "let go of [their] life and this unreliable world" (l. 1622).

Hrothgar tells Beowulf that those who understand "true values" are most unlike the "mind of a man" that "follow[s] its bent," and "forgets that it [life] will ever end for him." "[...] Illness and old age/ mean nothing to him," until finally "the soul's guard, its sentry, drowses,/ grown too distracted. A killer stalks him." Hrothgar explains that, as for all humans, "finally the end arrives/ when the body he was lent collapses and falls/ prey to its death." The "ancestral possessions" he had hoarded "are inherited by another/ who lets them go with a liberal hand" (ll. 1723-57). No one can escape such fate in an "unreliable world." The answer is to seek "eternal rewards" (l. 1760), the timeless qualities of "truth and justice," "respect [for] tradition" (l. 1701) and the virtues of being "even-tempered,/ prudent and resolute" (l. 1705-06). Through possessing these, one may become part of the eternal, gain fame and, perhaps (like Beowulf), be remembered by a barrow-memorial, made with everlasting soil. Working at timeless virtues allows one to gain access to the timeless, to leave a mark on the earth.