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Thesis title I he_ !J..e ru 'I'~CSv\S be_ CJ+N.r i r\ F);:owuW c\nd +he- SoY~:J o .\' R CJ \c-.:\\d Date 6/ i 1/ I 2-.

Library Use

Accepted By: Dt . lin., i

The Hero versus the Other in Beowulf and the Song of Roland

by

Megan Behrend

Sherron Knopp, Advisor

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors in English

WILLIAMS COLLEGE

Williamstown, Massachusetts

May 16, 2012

Table of Contents

I. Introduction................................................................................................1

II. The Song of Roland.................................................................................12

III. Beowulf..................................................................................................27

IV. Conclusion.............................................................................................46

Works Cited/Consulted...............................................................................53

I. Introduction

The periphery of the Hereford World Map, one of the largest and most detailed of

the numerous surviving medieval mappaemundi, is teeming with unusual creatures. In

particular, many figures resisting categorization as either human or animal appear along

the maps edge, including dragons, giants, and various deformed humans in an extensive

catalogue of monstruosi populi, or monstrous races. In cultural-historical discussions of

medieval monsters, scholars frequently read the Hereford Map and other mappaemundi

as visual representations of the medieval cartographers worldview, particularly how he

defines himself in relation to other religions, cultures, and geographical places.

Accordingly, the medieval cartographers habit of relegating monsters to the edges of the

map, thus visually segregating them from his own race, namely European man, reveals

something about his perceived relationship to the monstrous Other. These peripheral

figures are sometimes, like the giants and dragons of the Hereford Map, monsters in the

fantastical sense of the word with which the modern reader is familiar. But others, like

the monstruosi populi, represent real people from cultures alien to medieval Europe, who

simply differed in physical appearance and social practices from the person describing

them (Friedman 1). Still, the medieval cartographer groups all monsters, the real

peoples along with the dragons and dog-headed giants, along the maps edges. As Asa

Simon Mittman explains, By lumping all the monsters together on the maps, the creators

2

of these maps have established a diametric world in which constant battle rages between

Men and Monsters (45).

Jeffrey Cohen, drawing on a body of criticism that he labels monster theory,

describes the literary monster narrative as functioning similarly to medieval

mappaemundi, that is, as a tool for mapping cultural difference frequently in binary

opposition to the Self (7). Considering this unity of function, while the worldview

presented in medieval monster narratives will certainly differ from that found on maps

from the same period, it is reasonable to expect some correspondence between the two.

At the very least, one anticipates a representation of a similar diametric world in which

constant battle rages between Men and Monsters.

Deeply interested in such diametric worlds, medieval epic is a genre in many

ways synonymous with the medieval monster narrative, and comparative epic scholarship

confirms this relationship. In his historical linguistic analysis of Indo-European heroic

poetry, Calvert Watkins locates the monster narrative at the foundations of epic tradition.

He traces the theme of dragon slaying, as represented by genetically related linguistic

formulas, from its origin in myth to its emergence in epic as early as Homers Iliad and

Odyssey: The serpent adversary of myth can easily become the human adversary of epic

reality (Watkins 471). Watkins also confirms the expectation of a diametric

worldview in medieval epic, identifying the very specific binary opposition of Order,

the human, versus Chaos, the dragon (299).

Even W.P. Ker, over a century ago, identified a binary opposition throughout

medieval epic in his seminal work on medieval genres, Epic and Romance. While he

argues that the killing of dragons and other monsters is the regular occupation of the

3

heroes of old wives tales and therefore undeserving of epic dignity, Ker defines the

epic as a conflict between defenders and invaders (Ker 190). Although Ker imagines this

particular conflict of the epic as occurring strictly between humans, these human

enemies, as invaders, share a characteristic of monsters emphasized by Cohen: The

monster is difference made flesh, come to dwell among us (7). The monster is not

simply a representation of the cultural Other, but an Other who strays from his own world

in order to invade that of the Self. In turn, the Self becomes responsible for the defense

of his world against this monstrous invader.

Thus, it is not surprising that constant battle...between Men and Monsters is at

the center of two of the most iconic medieval vernacular epics, the Old English Beowulf

and the Old French Song of Roland. In Beowulf the Men are Geats and Danes and the

Monsters they fight take the shape of fantastical nonhumans. In the Song of Roland,

the Franks fight other men, the Saracens, who are represented as monstrous because of

their Muslim faith. Initially, both poets seem to reinforce, through the relationship

between their respective heroes and enemies, the binary opposition that medieval

cartographers embed in mappaemundi, that Watkins identifies in the traditional theme of

dragon slaying, and that Ker establishes in his definition of epic as a tale of defenders

versus invaders. The monsters of Beowulf, for instance, superficially seem the antithesis

of the Danes and Geats, beginning with the poets immediate labeling of them as

inhuman. Grendel receives the bulk of these monstrous monikers, described as elleng!st

(bold demon, Beowulf 86), f!ond on helle (enemy from hell, Beowulf 101), and

grimma g!st (cruel spirit, Beowulf 102) in just the thirty-line passage in which he is

4

introduced.1 While the poems other two monsters accumulate a narrower variety of

labels, the poet frequently refers to Grendels mother as !gl"cw#f (she-monster) and

the dragon as draca (dragon). Similarly, the Roland poet initially constructs a binary

relationship between the opposing forces in his poem, constantly distinguishing the

Muslims from the Christians by labeling them paiens or pagans and even once

describing Marsile, the Muslim king, as Charlemagnes mortel enemi (mortal foe,

Roland 461).2 The poet also describes the Muslims as physically other and grotesque in

lines such as Issi est neirs cum peiz ki est demise ([He] is black as molten pitch, Roland

1635) and Granz unt les nes e lees les oreilles (They have large noses and broad ears,

Roland 1918).

But as one delves further into these texts, the antagonism between hero and

enemy, between Men and Monsters, quickly becomes complicated as a result of

frequent mirroring between the groups. At times, the poets endow these otherwise

opposed characters with the same characteristics, behaviors, or psychologies. As the hero

and the enemy appear increasingly alike, the worlds of these poems begin to resemble

less and less the diametric worlds of medieval mappaemundi and the epic. This

unexpected mirroring appears to contradict not only the medieval worldview as extracted

from pictorial evidence, but also expectations of the literary genre for which Beowulf and

Roland serve as iconic exempla.

1 All citations from Beowulf are from Fulk, Bjork, and Niles. The translations are my

own unless otherwise noted. 2 All citations from the Song of Roland are from Brault vol. 2. The corresponding

translations are from Burgess.

5

Among Beowulf scholars, interest in those moments in which the poems

monsters bear a striking resemblance to its human heroes is far from new.3 And yet the

critics have reached little consensus in their attempts to interpret this unexpected

parallelism. Carol Braun Pasternack, for one, analyzes several such instances using

Fredric Jamesons theory of the political unconscious:

[A] post-structuralist reading takes such a contradiction [parallelism

between the monsters and the Danes] as pointing to something the text is

attempting to cover up, an idea that is scandalous within the texts

dominant binary, which in Beowulf makes the heroic godly and the heros

opponents ungodly. The scandal here is that the Danes fundamentally do

not differ from Grendel. (Pasternack 185)

Pasternack proceeds to judge each of these moments as unintended, a slip revealing a

scandal within the resolutions the text is attempting and a political unconscious that the

text is working hard to cover up (185). Pasternack is correct to point out that these

moments do not settle into the binary relationship between heroes and enemies one

expects of a medieval epic. But considering the frequency with which these slip[s]

occur, I would challenge her assessment of them as unintentional or scandal[s]...the

text is working hard to cover up. Rather, the abundance and consistency of the

similarities between the heroes and the monsters strongly suggest a deliberate attempt to

complicate a simplistic picture of heroic society.

Perhaps the most striking similarity between the heroes and the enemies in

Beowulf is that the motives for their equally violent actions are identical. Each group

kills members of the other in order to defend themselves and their property or to avenge

the death of their relations. One might even describe the poems monsters as conforming

3 For a concise summary of scholarship interested in the monsters close resemblance to

the heroes, see Fulk, Bjork, and Niles xliv.

6

to the Anglo-Saxon heroic code, in which one is expected to avenge violent deeds against

kin and countrymen. Grendel, of course, seems to be an exception as he attacks the

Danes neither in defense nor for vengeance. And yet, Andy Orchard argues that of all

the monsters, it is Grendel who is most consistently depicted in human terms, particularly

in the constant evocation of exile imagery to describe his plight (30). Indeed, as

Grendel approaches the human world of Heorot, having left the moor or the f!felcynnes

eard (the region of the race of monsters, Beowulf 104), he exhibits simultaneous

identification with and isolation from the men he later attacks:

Fand !" #!r inne !elinga gedriht

swefan fter symble; sorge ne c$#on,

wonsceaft wera.

Then inside he found the company of noblemen

sleeping after a feast; they did not know sorrow,

the misery of men. (Beowulf 118-120)

While these men, resting comfortably in the human world, are unfamiliar with sorrow,

the misery of men, Grendel, a monster, knows this pain well.

In addition, whether committed by man or monster, acts of violence throughout

Beowulf are described by the poet in much the same language. For example, he

repeatedly uses the verb gewrecan or avenge to refer to both Beowulfs defeat of

Grendel, a deed carried out in response to the monsters ravaging of Heorot, and

Grendels mothers subsequent attack in response to the death of her son. In fact, the

poet first mentions Grendels mother not as !gl"cw#f or even Grendles m$dor, but as

wrecend or avenger (Beowulf 1256). Even the dragon, while physically the most

monstrous of the three creatures with his body that is byrnende and gebogen (burning

7

[and] coiled, Beowulf 2569), appears more like a warrior guarding a hall in the passage

in which he is introduced:

...!n ongan

deorcum nihtum draca r"csian,

s# $e on h#aum hofe hord beweotode,

st!nbeorh st#arcne;

...a certain one, a dragon, began to rule in dark nights,

who watched over treasure, a strong stone-barrow,

in a high hall. (Beowulf 2210-2213)

The words r!csian to rule and hofe residence could just as easily be used in a

description of Hrothgar presiding over Heorot. In addition, Beowulf himself

commissions the assembling of a st"nbeorh (stone-barrow) to commemorate his death

and, using the same noun as the poet uses in the above passage, calls it B!owulfes Biorh

(Beowulf 2807).

As in the case of Beowulf, scholars have also noted similarities between the

Christians and the Muslims of the Song of Roland and interpret this mirroring in a

number of ways. Ellen Peel summarizes several possible interpretations:

[A] mild opposition can illustrate the strength and seductiveness of evil.

Moreover, the Muslims need to be represented as worthy opponents for

the Christians, enemies against whom the Christians can prove their

courage and skill, since an easy victory would have little meaning...

Finally, as potential converts to Christianity, the Muslims must be

somewhat diverse, for they cannot all be portrayed as utterly alien.

(Peel 263)

While these are all plausible explanations of what Peel describes as surprisingly mild

oppositions...in an epic about mortal enemies, they do not exhaust the interpretive

possibilities (263). For example, William Comfort offers a different view: The evidence

would hardly show that the Christians thought of the Saracens as ethically or culturally

inferior to themselves (633). While Comfort suggests, like Peel, that the Roland poet

8

might construct this parallelism because the likelihood is ever present that a Saracen

may change his faith (633), he also points to a more interesting interpretation of the

mirroring between the Christians and the Saracens. He demonstrates how the ethical and

cultural similarities between the two forces emphasize the Saracens chief folly, that is

devotion to a religion opposed to that of the Christians (623).

Even a casual reader of Roland will notice certain similarities between the Franks

and the Saracens, beginning with the identical structure of the two armies: Twelve Peers

lead the Christians and Twelve Champions lead the Muslims. Furthermore, the Muslim

soldiers appear to participate in the same Western institution of chivalry as the Christian

knights. In particular, the poet praises Margaris of Seville, one of Marsiles Twelve

Champions, for his chivalrous qualities:

Pur sa beltet dames li sunt amies:

Cele nel veit vers lui ne sesclargisset,

Quant ele le veit, ne poet mur ne riet;

N'i ad paien de tel chevalerie.

He is so handsome that the ladies adore him;

Whenever one sees him, her eyes light up.

When she catches sight of him, she becomes all smiles.

No pagan is such a good knight. (Roland 957-60)

In addition, the poet makes no attempt to portray Islam accurately, presenting it instead as

a corrupt mirror image of Christianity. Thus, he frequently describes the Muslims

prayer to a false trinity of Tervagant, Mohammed, and Apollo, mirroring the Christian

trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Roland 3267-8). These examples are only a

few of the countless similarities between the Muslims and the Christians in Roland. The

two armies subscribe to the same rituals whether in court, on the battlefield, or at prayer.

Their battle adornments and fighting styles are so similar that the two forces are

9

sometimes indistinguishable in the poems battle scenes. In fact, it often seems as though

the only distinction between the two armies is their loyalty to different religions, a

phenomenon the poet himself emphasizes with expressions such as Deus! quel baron,

sost chrestentet! (O God, what a noble baron, if only he were a Christian! Roland

3164).

It should be apparent by now that the relationship between hero and enemy and,

in these texts, between man and monster, necessarily implies some correspondence to the

relative good and evil of the characters. In The Dialectic of Fear, an essay that

examines Mary Shelleys Frankenstein and Paul Stokers Dracula, Franco Moretti

organizes good and evil, as they appear in the modern monster narrative, according to yet

another binary in which man is good, the monster evil (71). At the beginning of

Beowulf, the poet primes the reader to expect this model of good and evil in the medieval

monster narrative as well. Almost immediately, the Beowulf poet establishes the Danes

as the example of goodness, writing of Scyld Scefing, the founder of Hrothgars royal

bloodline, !t ws g"d cyning (That was a good king, 11). Similarly, throughout

Roland, the poet differentiates between good Christians and evil Muslims. He even treats

the relative morality of these characters as a fact they are capable of knowing or

understanding themselves, writing, Li amiralz alques sen aperceit / Que il ad tort e

Carlemagnes dreit (The Emir thereby begins to realize / That he is wrong and

Charlemagne right, Roland 3553-4). Given these overt proclamations of good and evil,

the similarities between the hero and the enemy in both Beowulf and Roland should

disturb the reader. From the examples offered above, one can already anticipate how

mirroring between two warring groups in narratives of such violence might complicate

10

the readers sympathies. One expects epic heroes to appear consistently good and their

enemies consistently evil, but when the monsters and the Muslims behave identically to

the Danes and the Franks, it appears that this binary cannot possibly hold up.

As it turns out, mirroring between the hero and the enemy impacts the good/evil

binary of the two texts quite differently and I explore these differences in the chapters

that follow. First, I investigate the Roland poets use of mirroring to assert the inherent

goodness of the Christians and the evil of the Muslims. Portraying the Muslim forces as

a mirror image of Charlemagnes army in many ways reduces the significance of the

enemies to the one quality that differentiates them from the heroes: their subscription to

Islam, the inherently wrong religion. As a result, the parallelism that initially appears to

contradict the expected good Christians versus evil Muslims dichotomy actually

reinforces it. I also identify instances in which this good/evil binary, despite the poets

attempt to strengthen it, breaks down, especially in the betrayal of the Christians by

Ganelon, a Christian traitor and arguably the most evil character in the poem. The next

chapter similarly examines the mirroring between men and monsters in Beowulf,

emphasizing the ways in which the poet destabilizes a heroic morality that superficially

seems to promote a binary distinction between hero and enemy. The Beowulf poet

includes monsters that demand sympathy usually reserved for humans, while the humans,

in turn, look occasionally as monstrous as their inhuman opponents. In doing this, the

poet reveals the limitations of the Anglo-Saxon heroic code, which often promotes

monstrous violence through its notions of protection and vengeance.

In the Song of Roland, the poet uses mirroring to firmly present eastern and

Muslim as innately evil qualities and French and Christian as innately good ones.

11

As a result, the Roland poet, writing at the very beginning of the first crusade, creates an

epic that promotes the virtue of the French Christian empire and justifies their violence

against the Muslim people. The goals of the Beowulf poet, however, are a little less clear.

Although the poet appears to destabilize the typical good heroes versus evil enemies

dichotomy of epic literature, it is too bold to suggest that the poem either condemns its

heroes entirely or absolves the monsters. Perhaps one should describe the work instead

as a reverent, yet critical reflection on Germanic heroic values. J.R.R. Tolkien first

characterized this quality of the poem in his 1936 essay, which still best explains the

poets position between admiration and criticism of his hero. He writes, And this, we

are told, is the radical defect of Beowulf, that its author, coming in a time rich in the

legends of heroic men, has used them afresh in an original fashion, giving us not just one

more, but something akin yet different: a measure and interpretation of them all (Tolkien

21).

II. The Song of Roland

Despite what is said around us persecutors are never obsessed by

difference but rather by its unutterable contrary, the lack of difference.

Ren Girard, The Scapegoat

________________________________________________________________________

In 1095 at Clermont, while proclaiming the first Crusade, Pope Urban II uttered

these words: Rise up and remember the manly deeds of your ancestors, the prowess and

greatness of Charlemagne, of his son Louis, and of your other kings, who destroyed

pagan kingdoms and planted the holy church in their territories (Brundage 18). The

Song of Roland, which most scholars judge to be contemporary with this speech,1 seems

designed to do precisely what Pope Urban was commandingthat is, to remember

Charlemagnes own military campaigns against non-Christians. It may then come as a

surprise that anti-Muslim military activity is completely absent from historical accounts

of the event on which Roland is based. In particular, Einhards ninth-century Life of

Charlemagne, a text that would have been available to the Roland poet, provides no

evidence that Charlemagne destroyed pagan kingdoms and planted the holy church in

1 According to Burgess, The poem has been dated as early as 1060 and as late as the

second half of the twelfth century, but the most frequently accepted date is around the

very end of the eleventh century (1098-1100) (8).

13

their territories at the 778 battle of Rencesvals.2 Instead, leading up to Rencesvals,

Charlemagne was in Spain fighting with and for Muslims through an alliance with the

Muslim governor of Barcelona, Suleiman ibn al-Arab (Brault 1: 1). According to

Einhard, as the French forces left Spain in order to join Charlemagnes more important

military endeavors against the Anglo-Saxons, Basque insurgents ambushed and

subsequently wiped out the French rearguard.3 Of course, these accounts of the historical

battle of Rencesvals are hardly recognizable in the poem. The Roland poet sets up the

battle as a consequence of longstanding animosities between Charlemagne and Muslim

states, making no mention of an alliance between the French emperor and Suleiman. He

transforms the Basque raiders of Einhards account into a massive Muslim force. And,

even though the poet describes the collapse of the Frankish rearguard in the first half of

his poem, he goes on to narrate an extremely successful yet entirely fictionalized

counterattack led by Charlemagne to annihilate the Muslim army in revenge.

These major discrepancies between the historical accounts of Rencesvals and its

literary representation in the Song of Roland suggest that, in the heat of Crusade fever,

the poet purposefully manipulated this ambush into a largely fictional tale of the

prowess and greatness of Charlemagne against Muslim enemies. As a result, Roland

seems to fit among a category of documents Ren Girard calls persecution texts. In The

Scapegoat, Girard defines persecution texts as accounts of real violence, often

collective, told from the perspective of the persecutors, and therefore influenced by

2 For the original Latin text and an English translation of Einhards account, see Brault

(1: 2-3). 3 William Kibler notes that Arabic accounts of the 778 battle of Rencesvals suggest that,

in actuality, a combination of Basque and Muslim insurgents participated in the ambush

on Charlemagnes rearguard (55).

14

characteristic distortions (9). Although Girards terminology of persecutors and

victims proves somewhat uncomfortable when applied to the epic, these terms quite

aptly describe Christians and Muslims during the Crusades. Certainly, twelfth-century

French crusaders, to whom the Roland poet hopes to appeal when fashioning the heroes

of Roland, can be considered persecutors and the Muslim people their victims.

According to Girards theory, it is not surprising that French crusaders direct their

violence against the Muslim community because both ethnic and religious otherness are

universal signs for the selection of victims (Girard, The Scapegoat 18). Girard notes

that physical differences, particularly disability and deformity, also belong to this group

of signs and that one of the characteristic distortions found in persecution texts is the

confounding of many signs in a single victim. For example, [I]f a group of people is

used to choosing its victims from a certain social, ethnic, or religious category, it tends to

attribute to them disabilities or deformities that would reinforce the polarization against

the victim, were they real (Girard, The Scapegoat 18). The Roland poet exemplifies this

theory, characterizing the Muslim armies as not only morally corrupt, but also physically

deformed.

As a result, although the heroes of Roland do not fight actual monsters like those

in Beowulf, the poet nevertheless portrays the Christians Muslim enemies as monstrous.

To begin, he attributes inhuman or beast-like physical characteristics to many of the

Muslim warriors. Of the Micenes as chefs gros (the large-headed Milceni, Roland

3221), for instance, he writes, Sur les eschines quil unt en mi les dos / Cil sunt seiet

ensement cume porc (On their spines, along the middle of their backs, / They are as

bristly as pigs, Roland 3222-3) and, of the people from Occian, he notes, Durs unt les

15

quirs ensement cume fer (Their skins are as hard as iron, Roland 3249). Certainly, the

poet attributes these physical deformities to the Muslim army in order to reinforce the

polarization against them (Girard, The Scapegoat 18). But these images of men with

distinctly inhuman characteristics also recall the monstruosi populi of the Hereford World

Map. While the Milceni and the people from Occian, like the monstruosi populi,

probably represent real people who simply differed in physical appearance and social

practices from the person describing them, the Roland poet, like the medieval

cartographer, exaggerates these differences and interprets them as outward manifestations

of inherent evil (Friedman 1).

The Roland poet expresses the monstrosity of the Muslims not only in their

physical descriptions, but also by symbolically associating them with beasts. Within the

vocabulary of Charlemagnes prophetic dream imagery, beasts consistently signify the

Frankish kings Muslim enemies:

Aprs iceste altre avisiun sunjat:

Quil ert en France, a sa capele, ad Ais;

El destre braz li morst uns uers si mals.

Devers Ardene vit venir uns leuparz,

Sun cors demenie mult fierement asalt.

After this dream he had another vision:

That he was in France in his chapel at Aix;

In his right arm he is bitten by a vicious boar.

From the direction of the Ardennes he saw a leopard coming;

It attacks his body with great ferocity. (Roland 725-9)

This vision of Charlemagne attacked by a boar and a leopard foreshadows the impending

Muslim assault on the Christian rearguard. In a subsequent dream predicting a second

battle, Charlemagne sees the Muslims as a number of even more demonic animals,

including [s]erpenz e guivres, dragun e averser (serpents, vipers, dragons and devils)

16

and [g]rifuns (griffins, Roland 2543, 2544). Some of these creatures, namely leopards,

might be explained as typical signs of military ferocity in medieval heroic poetry.

Similarly, medieval armies are often pictured carrying heraldic images of dragons and

griffins. But boars, serpents, vipers, and, most dramatically, devils evoke not heroic

prowess, but beastliness and monstrosity. And, in the second dream, the sheer variety of

animals that the poet lists overwhelms the reader with a sense of the Muslims

inhumanity, representing them not as an army of men but a catalogue of monstrous

creatures. In turn, the symbolism of these dreams establishes more forcefully the

inherent evil the poet wishes to attribute to the Muslims.

According to these examples, the Roland poet portrays the Muslims precisely as

Girard expects persecutors to treat their victims. The poet exaggerates the Muslims

cultural difference to such an extent that he essentially makes the Muslims and Christians

into different species. But Girard also explains that the persecutors urge to emphasize

and even invent differences between the victimized and persecuting groups is,

paradoxically, a symptom of their very real similarities: Religious, ethnic, or national

minorities are never actually reproached for their difference, but for not being as different

as expected, and in the end for not differing at all (The Scapegoat 22). As applied to

Roland, this idea suggests that the Christians fear and therefore persecute the Muslims

because their similarities as monotheistic warring peoples threatens the illusion that

Christians alone practice the right religion and pray to the right God. The fact that the

Muslims pray in similar ways and are equally assured that they direct those prayers to the

right God therefore terrifies the Christians. Girard explains that the tendency of the

persecutor to emphasize those differences that do exist, and often those that do not,

17

allows him to maintain the illusion of difference between himself and his victim, just as

the Roland poet distorts his descriptions of the Muslims to make them not just wrong or

evil, but literal monsters.

But, of course, the Roland poet also reveals and even intensifies a lack of

difference between the Christians and the Muslims in the mirror images of the heroes and

the enemies he provides. On some occasions, in fact, the two armies are nearly

indistinguishable from one another, as in the following passage, where their fighting style

and wardress are identical:

Mult ben i fierent Franceis e Arrabit;

Fruissent cez hanste e cil espiez furbit.

Ki dunc vest cez escuz si malmis,

Cez blancs osbercs ki dunc ost fremir,

E cez escuz sur cez helmes cruisir,

Cez chevalers ki dunc vest car

E humes braire, contre tere murir,

De grant dulor li post suvenir.

The Franks and the Arabs strike fine blows;

They smash their shafts and their furbished spears.

Anyone who had seen the ruined shields,

Heard the ring of metal on shining hauberks,

And the grating of swords on helmets,

And anyone who had seen these knights toppling,

Men howling, as they fall dead upon the ground,

Would have many sorrowful memories! (Roland 3481-8)

But the similarities between the warriors seem to extend beyond their weapons, armor,

and accoutrements when the poet evaluates the fighting of the two armies with equal

praise, asserting that both [t]he Franks and the Arabs strike fine blows and members of

each army fall dead upon the ground. Certainly, the equally fatal combat of the two

armies may simply confirm that the Muslims are worthy opponents for the Christian

heroes. But the final line of this passage, that anyone who had seen...[w]ould have

18

many sorrowful memories, seems a surprising place to confound distinctions between

the Christians and the Muslims. The reader expects the poet to encourage the

hypothetical onlooker to sympathize only with the Christians, but this passage implies

that all deaths at battle are equally mournful regardless of the victim. After many

references to the Muslims bestial and monstrous qualities, the poet portrays the Muslims

and the Christians as equally human and sympathetic when describing their respective

casualties.

The mirroring between the two armies is perhaps best illustrated in the parallel

figures of Charlemagne and the Muslim emir, the grey-bearded leaders of the two armies:

Li amiralz Preciuse ad criee,

Carles Munjoie, lenseigne renumee.

Lun conuist laltre as haltes voiz e cleres,

En mi le camp amdui sentrencuntrerent.

Si se vunt ferir, granz colps sentredunerent

De lor espies en lor targes roees,

Fraites les unt desuz cez bucles lees.

De lor osbercs les pans en desevrerent,

Dedenz cez cors mie ne sadeserent.

Rumpent cez cengles e cez seles verserent,

Cheent li rei, a tere se turnerent,

Isnelement sur lor piez releverent.

Mult vassalment unt traites les espees.

The emir cried out Preciuse

And Charles Monjoie, his renowned battle-cry.

They recognize each others loud, clear voices

And both met in the middle of the field.

They go to strike each other and dealt mighty blows

With their spears on their wheel-patterned shields.

They shattered them beneath their broad bosses

And severed the skirts from their hauberks,

Without touching each others bodies.

They break their girths and turned over their saddles;

The kings fall and tumbled to the ground.

Immediately they rose to their feet;

Very courageously they drew their swords. (Roland 3564-76)

19

The synchronized combat described in this passage reads as though the two kings are

performing a well-choreographed dance. Charlemagne and the emir face one another,

each handling his weapon so adeptly that they strike in unison until they simultaneously

plummet from their horses, rise, and begin to fight again, this time on their feet. It is

particularly interesting that the poet describes both kings as courageous rather than

reserving this compliment for Charlemagne alone. Previously, the poet praises other

qualities of the emir, calling him a mult par est riches hoem (very powerful man,

Roland 3265) and a mult de grant saveir (man of great wisdom, Roland 3279),

characteristics also ascribed to Charlemagne. Consequently, the Roland poet seems to

remember...the prowess and greatness not only of Charlemagne (Brundage 18), but

also of his Muslim opponent.

In the above passages and others, the Roland poet portrays the Muslims and the

Christians fighting or leading their armies with equal skill and often similar success even

as he and his characters repeatedly assert that [p]aien unt tort e chrestens unt dreit

([t]he pagans are wrong and the Christians are right, Roland 1015). Such explicit

mirroring between the two armies initially seems counterproductive to the poets goals.

That is, one would think that actively minimizing the differences between the Christians

and the Muslims only reinforces the very reality that frightens the Christiansthat they

and their victims are not...as different as expected (Girard, The Scapegoat 22). And yet

the Roland poets mirroring ultimately emphasizes the one difference that he preserves,

which is also the difference in which the Christians have the most at stake. Mirroring

between the Christians and the Muslims does not contradict the poets statement that

[p]aien unt tort e chrestens unt dreit ([t]he pagans are wrong and the Christians are

20

right, Roland 1015), but rather reinforces it. After describing the equally deft combat of

Charlemagne and the Muslim emir, for instance, the poet concludes, Ceste bataille ne

poet remaneir unkes, / Josque li uns sun tort i reconuisset (This combat can never come

to end, / Until one of the men admits his wrong, Roland 3587-8). Although the emir

never backs down from the fight, he realizes [q]ue il ad tort e Carlemagnes dreit ([t]hat

he is wrong and Charlemagne right, Roland 3553-4). Accordingly, even after the emir

strikes Charlemagne, God sends Saint Gabriel to ensure that the emir, not Charlemagne

falls slain. In turn, although both leaders and armies possess admirable strength, only the

Christians have the true God on their side.

The way in which mirroring between the Christians and the Muslims actually

strengthens the Roland poets assertion that the Muslims are wrong or evil is most

apparent in his misrepresentation of Islam as a false mirror image of Christianity.

Throughout the poem, for instance, the Muslim warriors carry ensigns featuring images

of Tervagant, Mohammed, and Apollo. Edward Said explains that, beginning with their

earliest attempts to understand Islam, medieval Christians faced an analogical

difficulty: [S]ince Christ is the basis of Christian faith, it was assumedquite

incorrectlythat Mohammed was to Islam as Christ was to Christianity (60). But, as

Comfort notes, in medieval French epics or chansons de geste, this inaccurate analogy

becomes even more pronounced, in which texts Mahom was facile princeps, with

Apolin and Tervagant next in importance and forming with him a sort of trinity

(Comfort 640). But even as the Roland poet intends these three figures to mirror the

Christian trinity, he uses them to prove the Muslims polytheists. That is, because this

Islamic trinity is not the Christian trinity, Tervagant, Mohammed, and Apollo are not

21

three consubstantial persons, but idols. In addition, the poet depicts both the Christians

and the Muslims praying for victory throughout their battles, albeit with differing

success. When Charlemagne [c]ulchet sei a tere, si priet Damnedeu / Que li soleilz facet

pur lui arester ([l]ies down on the ground and prays to God / That for him he should

stop the sun in his tracks, Roland 2449-50), an angel immediately appears and grants

this miracle. In the following laisse, however, when the poet portrays Muslims engaging

in similar prayer, the outcome differs greatly: Paiens recleiment un lur deu,

Tervagant...mais il ni unt guarant (The pagans call on one of their gods, Tervagant...but

they have no one to save them, Roland 2468-9). Perhaps the most powerful example of

this simultaneous mirroring and moral distinguishing occurs in parallel scenes during

which the soul of a fallen Muslim en portet Sathanas (is carried off by Satan, Roland

1268) while [a]ngles del ciel i descendent ([a]ngels come down...from Heaven, Roland

2374) to collect the soul of a Christian. In these ways, the Roland poet makes literal the

very difference that the Christians imagine to exist between themselves and the Muslims.

While the armies pray, fight, and die in nearly identical ways, the Roland poet

emphasizes that the Christians believe in the one true God and are consequently

redeemed whereas the Muslims believe in a false God, or rather gods, and are therefore

aligned with the devil.

For a large part of the poem, the poets characterizations of the heroes and the

enemies consistently function as described above. And yet the Roland poet endows two

characters, Roland and Ganelon, with more complexity than the others. For vastly

different reasons, both Roland and Ganelon are distinct from the rest of the Christian

army. Although Roland is the definitive hero of the poem, he possesses certain qualities

22

that the poet also uses to portray the Muslims negatively. For instance, in a number of

passages, the poet compares Roland to a beast. In Charlemagnes first prophetic dream

during which a leopard and a boar represent the Muslim forces, another beast, clearly

symbolizing Roland, appears:

Denz de sale uns veltres avalat

Que vint a Carles le galops e les salz.

La destre oreille al premer uer trenchat,

Ireement se cumbat al lepart.

From within the hall a hunting-dog came down,

Bounding and leaping towards Charles.

It tore off the right ear of the first boar;

Angrily it wrestles with the leopard. (Roland 730-3)

Similarly, Rolands demeanor at war is described as [p]lus...fiers que leon ne leupart

(fiercer than a lion or a leopard, Roland 1111) and the poet again likens him to a

hunting-dog in the following simile: Si cum li cerfs sen vait devant les chiens, / Devant

Rollant si sen fuient paiens (Just as a stag flees before the hounds, / So the pagans take

flight before Roland, Roland 1874-5). As I noted earlier, when the Roland poet

compares the Muslims to beasts he emphasizes their inhumanity. But when the poet

depicts his hero in these primal, strikingly violent images of an animal attacking his prey,

it only emphasizes Rolands merit as a warrior. In his discussion of the figure of the hero

across the Indo-European tradition, Dean Miller addresses such contradictions in the

character of epic heroes:

[H]is liminal nature may appear in a high-flown, hubristic assault on

heaven in the one direction, and his risky penetration of the Netherworld

in the other, with all of the rich, ambiguous powers they represent or

contain. The hero may stand (or deliquesce?) between genders and

generations, or between the realms of life and death. (Miller 296)

23

While Miller does not list the position between man and beast/monster as one that the

hero might occupy, except regarding his size of inhuman proportions in certain texts,

Rolands position between warrior and beast seems to place him in a liminal space

similar to those Miller discusses. Even though Roland may resemble his Muslim

enemies, who are frequently figured as boars, dragons, and even devils, he only assumes

greater strength when he is portrayed as a hunting-dog, lion, or leopard, or, to borrow

Millers language, all of the rich, ambiguous powers [those images] represent or

contain (Miller 296). As a result, Rolands bestial characteristics only strengthen the

poets argument by suggesting that a Christian remains good and perhaps even becomes

better when he acquires the very traits that align the Muslims with evil.

But Roland possesses another quality associated with evil when observed in the

Muslims. When it becomes clear that the Muslim army greatly outnumbers the rearguard

of the Christians, Roland refuses to the blow his horn and call for Charlemagnes help,

arguing en perdreie mun los (I should lose my good name, Roland 1054). Oliver

suggests that Rolands refusal to blow the horn makes him a disloyal vassal: Kar

vasselage par sens nen est folie; / Mielz valt mesure que ne fait estultie (For a true

vassals act, in its wisdom, avoids folly; / Caution is better than great zeal, Roland 1724-

5). Olivers condemnation reveals a particular tension in the poems heroic morality, a

tension that has generated extensive debate among scholars about this particular

incident.4 Since the great zeal Roland displays and the true vassal[age] Oliver

4 Brault briefly summarizes the predominant viewpoints in this debate: [Joseph] Bdier

believed that Turoldus [the Roland poet] deliberately left unanswered the question of

whether Roland or Oliver was right in the famous oliphant scene, but other scholars have

argued either for or against Rolands desmesure, concluding more often than not that hero

was morally wrong in his initial decision to make a stand at Roncevaux (1: 10).

24

recommends are both virtues in battle, it is difficult to determine whether or not Roland

makes the right choice according to a heroic ethos. But the value system with which the

poet seems more preoccupied, religious morality, even in this somewhat ambiguous

image of the hero, remains clear. Regardless of how one wishes to interpret Rolands

refusal, his statement en perdreie mun los (I should lose my good name) certainly

displays pride. When the Muslims show pride, the poet condemns them quite explicitly:

Devers vos est li orguilz e li torz (On your side is both pride and wrong, Roland 1549).

These incidents seem to suggest that pride amounts to sin or evil if one is already a sinner

for praying to the wrong God. Similarly, despite Olivers harsh accusation, Rolands

pride and its consequences for the rearguard are ultimately labeled as a more trivial

errorOliver uses the term follyrather than sin or evil because, as a Christian,

Roland is inherently good. Thus, Rolands pride does not approach the evil of the

Muslims, who sin simply in their rejection of Christianity and their faith in Islam.

Although Oliver tells Roland, Cumpainz, vos le festes (Companion, you have

been the cause of it, Roland 1723), the real cause of the Christians loss is Ganelon.

Charlemagne recognizes Ganelon as the source of his rearguards defeat in another

prophetic dream:

Sunjat quil eret as greignurs porz de Sizer,

Entre ses poinz teneit sa hanste fraisnine.

Guenes li quens lad sur lui saisie,

Par tel ar lat estrussee e brandie

Quenvers le cel en volent les escicles.

He dreamed he was at the main pass of Cize;

In his hands he was holding his lance of ash.

Count Ganelon seized it from his grasp;

He broke it and brandished it with such violence

That the splinters flew up into the sky. (Roland 719-23)

25

Ganelon initially leads the unsuspecting rearguard into deadly battle in order to exact

revenge on his stepson Roland, who earlier nominates him to serve as the envoy to

Marsiles court. And yet, in this scheme, Ganelon also knowingly betrays his king and

country. As Charlemagne himself exclaims when he interprets his dream, Par Guenelun

serat destruite France! (France will be destroyed by Ganelon, Roland 835). The

Roland poet acknowledges the great evil of such a betrayal. He frequently labels

Ganelon li fels (the traitor) and, at one point, Charlemagne refers to him as the vifs

diables (living devil, Roland 746). Still, the Roland poet does not condemn Ganelon to

the extent that he condemns the Muslims, beginning with the fact that Ganelon is never

portrayed as definitively monstrous. In Charlemagnes dreams, for instance, Ganelon

appears as himself, a human, while the Muslims and even Roland are portrayed as beasts.

In addition, Charlemagne grants Ganelon a trial to determine his punishment, implying

that his absolution is possible. In fact, had Charlemagnes knight Thierry not defeated

Ganelons proxy Pinabel in the tournament, the traitor would presumably have been

released without any punishment for his treason. The Muslims, however, receive no trial

to determine the punishment for their sins: their evil is indisputable because of their

heretical faith. Each Muslim warrior must submit to baptism or [i]l le fait prendre o

ardeir ou ocire ([h]e [Charlemagne] has him hanged or burned or put to death, Roland

3670).

Girard asserts that the authors of persecution texts consider themselves judges,

and therefore they must have guilty victims (The Scapegoat 6). Certainly, the Roland

poet possesses a strong judgmental voice, continually asserting [p]aien unt tort e

chrestens unt dreit ([t]he pagans are wrong and the Christians are right, Roland 1015)

26

and variations on this phrase. He justifies these words and the guilt of the Muslims with

images of divine judgment, sending the souls of fallen Christians to Heaven and those of

the Muslims to Hell. The criteria on which the poet bases his judgments then are

exceedingly clear: Christians are inherently good, while Muslims are inherently evil. The

poet manipulates the content of his poem in order to support this binary morality, most

notably transforming a historical defeat by Basques into a victory against Muslims and

then proceeding to turn the Muslims into monsters.

But, as I have demonstrated, the Roland poet also supplies ample evidence to

undermine this binary morality. He portrays the deeds of the Muslim and the Christian

armies as equivalently violent and reveals Ganelons treachery, not the evil of the

Muslims, to be the most destructive force in the poem. Even though the poet attempts to

justify these discrepancies, the reader can still demystify his text. Girard is instrumental

in this demystification, whose theory leads the reader to see that the Roland poet makes

the Muslims a monstrous mirror image of the Christians because he fears the many

similarities that actually exist between the two groups. Outside of literature, of course,

devils and angels do not carry away the souls of the dead and God does not always

answer Christian prayers. Frightened by the lack of assurance that, indeed, chrestens unt

dreit (the Christians are right, Roland 1015), the poet seeks to justify this statement on

his own in the Song of Roland.

III. Beowulf

S!" bi" swicolost.

Truth is most deceptive.

The Cotton Gnomes

________________________________________________________________________

Although the Beowulf poet devotes the majority of his three thousand lines to

telling the story of a hero and three monstrous opponents, the poem opens with an

account of conflict among men: Oft Scyld Sc#fing scea$ena $r#atum, / monegum

m%g$um meodosetla oft#ah, / egsode eorlas (Often Scyld Scefing withheld hall-seats

from troops of enemies, many peoples, and terrified warriors, Beowulf 4-6). Even

beyond this initial image, the poet refers throughout Beowulf to ongoing feuds among

many peoples or clans, including the Danes, Geats, Swedes, Finns, and Frisians.

Through these frequent references, the poet makes palpable an extreme loss of social

order in the Anglo-Saxon society he describes, a quality that, according to Girard, is a

precondition for the scapegoat mechanism (Girard, The Scapegoat 14). Girard suggests

that societies facing such disorder often use scapegoats to displace their resulting anxiety:

[R]ather than blame themselves, people inevitably blame...other people who seem

particularly harmful for easily identifiable reasons (The Scapegoat 14). These easily

identifiable reasons refer to overt differences between the persecuting community and

28

the scapegoat community, whether those differences are ideologicalfor example, the

religious opposition between Christians and Muslims in the Song of Rolandor

superficial. Grendel, his mother, and the dragon, opponents in the three main battles of

Beowulf, seem particularly harmful because they differ from the poems human heroes

both in appearance and as inhabitants of the unknown. The scapegoat mechanism then

helps to explain why Beowulf seems most preoccupied with battles against monsters,

even though the poet hints that feuds among men, beginning long before Grendel arrives

at Heorot and continuing long after Beowulf defeats the dragon, pose a more sustained

threat to the poems heroes.

In the preceding chapter, I characterize the Roland poet as a judge, albeit a poor

one, an observation based on Girards claim that persecutors consider themselves

judges (The Scapegoat 6). And, indeed, throughout his poem, the Roland poet makes

statements leading to the assertion that [p]aien unt tort e chrestens unt dreit ([t]he

pagans are wrong and the Christians are right, Roland 1015). But even more frequently

and distinctly than the Roland poet, the speaker of Beowulf shifts from his primary mode

of narration to one of judgment. At times the poet himself issues moral evaluations,

while at other times characters within the poem participate in the judging. One judgment

in particular rings out more often than others: !t ws g"d cyning (That was a good

king, Beowulf 11). This half-line appears three times in the poem, first in its opening

passage where it is attributed to Scyld Scefing, later in reference to Hrothgar (Beowulf

863), and a final ambiguous instance, which praises either Beowulf or Onela (Beowulf

2390). Several other lines in Beowulf resemble this far-echoing half-line, such as ws

s#o $#od tilu (that was a good people, Beowulf 1250), which is ascribed to Hrothgars

29

retainers. But there are still other passages that, while prescriptive rather than evaluative,

similarly grapple with concepts of good and evil. In fact, the majority of the poems

moralizing moments occur in passages like the following, from the opening lines of the

poem:

Sw! sceal geong guma g"de gewyrcean,

fromum feohgiftum on fder bearme,

#t hine on ylde eft gewunigen

wilges$#as, #onne w$g cume,

l%ode gel!sten; lofd!dum sceal

in m!g#a gehw!re man ge#eon.

So must a young man carry out goodness, bold treasure dispensing,

in his fathers keeping, so that close companions stand by him

afterwards in his old age and, when war comes, men serve him;

one must prosper by glorious deeds in all nations. (Beowulf 20-25)

In this passage, parallel constructions using sceal not only signal a transition from the

surrounding narrative sentences, but also associate these lines with the Anglo-Saxon

poetic tradition of gnomic wisdom proclamations.1 Greenfield and Calder, in A New

Critical History of Old English Literature, suggest that gnomes or maxims of this sort

offered up moral guides for large socio-religious areas of human endeavor (259).

Whether judgmental or gnomic, the above passages and those similar to them reveal a

persistent preoccupation with evaluations and definitions of morality on the part of the

Beowulf poet.

Interest in establishing a particular morality or ethos and, in turn, making

judgments according to that value system, is a prominent feature of most Anglo-Saxon

1 Gnomic language occurs throughout the surviving body of Anglo-Saxon poetry, found

both embedded in larger narrative poems as Beowulf and throughout two poems

consisting entirely of these gnomic phrases known as the Exeter Gnomes and the Cotton

Gnomes.

30

heroic poetry. In fact, Greenfield and Calder claim that most important for Old English

secular poems

were the spirit and code of conduct they embodied... This heroic spirit

manifested itself most strongly in the desire for fame and glory, now and

after death. The code of conduct stressed the reciprocal obligations of lord

and thegns: protection and generosity on the part of the former, loyalty

and service on that of the latter. (134)

Certainly, the Beowulf poet gestures at precisely these values in his moralizing passages.

In fact, in just the six-line maxim excerpted above, the Beowulf poet accounts for both the

reciprocal obligations of lord and thegns and the desire for fame and glory. To

begin, the poet avers that a lord must reward his vassals with treasure and, in return,

receive their service, particularly at battle. Then, in the final lines of this same passage,

he asserts the importance of widespread glory in the heroic society of the poem:

lofd!dum sceal / in m!g"a gehw!re man ge"eon (one must prosper by glorious deeds

in all nations, Beowulf 24-5).

Those passages in Beowulf that overtly deliver moral precepts stand out against

the poems predominant narrative. Many of these judgments and maxims are also

imbedded in the poems narrative digressions.2 For instance, the first iteration of the

phrase "t ws g#d cyning as well as the first maxim I quoted above refer to legendary

kings in the line from which Hrothgar descends, the former to Scyld Scefing and the

latter to his son Beow. Similar moralizing passages occur later in the poem among tales

of characters only tangentially related to the main narrative, such as the evil king

2 Some scholars differentiate between Beowulfs true digressions and other episodes

removed from the main plot of the poem. Above, by digressions, I mean any narration

describing events that occur outside the primary narrative. Robert Bjorks Digressions

and Episodes in Bjork and Niles provides a comprehensive summary of the interesting

critical history surrounding these moments in the poem (193-212).

31

Heremod or the kin-slayer Hthcyn. As a result of their distance from the main episodes,

these judgments and maxims form somewhat of a superstructure for the poem. Thus

girded in definitions and evaluations of heroic morality, Beowulf invites, if not compels,

the reader to consider the ways in which the events of the primary narrative match the

overarching heroic code of the maxims and to judge the morality of the characters

dominating the plot.

The reader already knows what events underlie this superstructure of moral

definitions and evaluations: three battles against three monsters. As I suggested earlier,

these inhuman enemies seem to serve as scapegoats for a society in which feuding among

men presents the more destructive threat. Girard suggests and, indeed, the reader sees in

Roland that such societies tend to endow scapegoats with characteristics that reinforce

the polarization against the victim (The Scapegoat 18). Accordingly, the reader expects

the monsters of Beowulf to appear supremely other and evil, particularly in contrast with

the human heroes.

When the reader initially encounters Grendel and his mother, who together make

up the monstrous family that Beowulf opposes in the first two battles of the poem, the

poet seems to offer precisely this characterization. At times, the Beowulf poet quite

explicitly labels Grendel and his mother evil. For instance, he uses m!n, the Old English

word for evil, in the compound m!nsca"a or evil-destroyer twice to describe Grendel

as he approaches Heorot on the night of his battle against Beowulf (Beowulf 712, 737)

and once to refer to his mother when she follows this same path towards revenge

(Beowulf 1339). Even more frequently, the poet applies the semantically similar word

atol or terrible to this monstrous family, labeling Grendel atol !ngengea (terrible

32

solitary one, Beowulf 165) and atol !gl"ca (terrible monster, Beowulf 732) and his

mother atol...fylle (terrible in feast, Beowulf 1332-3). In addition, the poet associates

Grendel and his mother with a particularly inauspicious progeny: f#felcynnes eard /

wons"l# wer weardode hw#le, / si$%an him scyppen forscrifen hfde / in C!ines cynne

(the unfortunate one occupied the region of the race of monsters for a long time, since

the creator had condemned him as Cains kin, Beowulf 104-7). Beowulf himself, after

telling the story of Hthcyns fratricide, deems kin slaying feohl&as, which literally

means without money, but implies that the sin is inexpiable or unforgiveable (Beowulf

2441). As a result, the poem suggests that, through their descent from the original kin-

slayer, Cain, Grendel and his mother have somehow inherited his paradigmatic evil.

Their evil also manifests itself in their geographical segregation from the humans,

another consequence of their relationship to Cain:

ne gefeah h! "!re f!h#e, ac h! hine feor forwrc,

metod for "" m$ne, mancynne fram.

"anon unt"dras ealle onw%con,

eotenas ond ylfe ond orcneas,

swylce g&gantas

He [Cain] did not rejoice for that hostile act, and the Lord exiled him far

from mankind for this crime. From him arose all evil offspring,

enemy creatures and elves and monsters and also giants.

(Beowulf 109-113)

This landscape, featuring various monsters exiled mancynne fram (from mankind),

recalls the geography of medieval mappaemundi, in which monsters are exiled to the

periphery. In this portrayal of f#felcynnes eard (the region of the race of monsters), the

Beowulf poet seems to be presenting a similar diametric world in which constant battle

rages between Men and Monsters (Mittman 45).

33

Beyond their shared marks of evil, Grendel and his mother each possess

individually incriminating characteristics. Grendels damning qualities are largely the

ways in which he commits his violent acts. Shortly after Hrothgar erects Heorot, that

healrna m!st (greatest of hall-buildings, Beowulf 78), Grendel ravages it daily for

twelve years, slaughtering countless Danes. Of course, nearly every character in

Beowulf, including Hrothgar, Hygelac, Beowulf, and their retainers, take part in highly

destructive acts of violence. Yet, unlike Grendels murderous visits to Heorot, the

violence that Hrothgar, Hygelac, and Beowulf either commission or commit are acts of

vengeance and therefore excused, even promoted, by the heroic code. And, of course, the

aspect of Grendels attacks that most disturbs readers is the way in which he does not

simply kill his human victims, but devours them. Upon entering Heorot, Grendel

fantasizes about the feast he will make of the men:

!" his m#d "hl#g;

mynte !t h$ ged!lde, !r !on dg cw#me,

atol "gl!ca, "nra gehwylces

l%f wi& l%ce, !" him "lumpen ws

wistfylle w$n.

Then his heart exulted; he thought that he would dispense life

from the body of each one, before day came, the terrible monster,

then the expectation of a plentiful meal was arisen to him.

(Beowulf 730-36)

This description of Grendels greedy feasting on the Danes, who are later described as eal

gefeormod (all eaten up, Beowulf 743), seems only to intensify his portrayal as an evil

monster.

But even among these images of unbounded violence, the poet often portrays

Grendel as strikingly human and, in turn, sympathetic. Grendel, when he is not killing,

wanders alone: on weres wstmum wrcl"stas trd, / nfne h# ws m"ra $onne !nig

34

man !"er ([he] walked upon the tracks of exile in the form of a man, except that he was

larger than any other man Beowulf 1352-3). Exile, even as an abstract concept, seems

primarily a human condition and one that is continually mourned by men in Beowulf and

throughout Anglo-Saxon poetry generally.3 The poet makes explicit the human quality of

exile when he portrays a solitary Grendel walking on weres wstmum (in the form of a

man). In addition, after describing the construction of Heorot and the merriment that

fills it subsequently, the poet causes the reader to sympathize with Grendel by narrating

the monsters experience from outside Heorots walls:

!" se elleng!st earfo#l$ce

%r"ge ge%olode, s& %e in %"strum b"d,

%t h& d'gora gehw"m dr&am geh"rde

hl(dne in healle;

Then the bold demon painfully endured this time,

he who waited in darkness, so that each day he heard delight,

loud in the hall. (Beowulf 86-9)

This passage leaves Grendel and the reader alike unable to visualize the activity inside,

but cognizant of it through sounds of merriment. Through this imagery, the reader is

invited to share Grendels misery as an outcast, a condition made particularly pitiable

considering a distant ancestor of both monsters and humans was the agent of the original,

damning crime.

Instead of creating an absolute contrast between Grendel and his hero, the poet

uses mirroring between the two characters to further emphasize the way in which

Grendels exile lessens his monstrosity. Even as a hero, Beowulf exhibits some of the

3 In particular, the section of Beowulf known as the Lay of the Last Survivor (lines

2247-2266) as well as The Wanderer and The Seafarer, two shorter Anglo-Saxon poems,

lament being a man #"le bid$led (deprived of a homeland, The Wanderer 20). This

citation from The Wanderer is taken from Mitchell and Robinson and the translation is

my own.

35

same distance from the Danes and Geats as Grendel does from humankind. For instance,

the poet presents both Beowulf and Grendel as figures of unmatched enormity, describing

their freakish size in nearly identical phrases:

N!fre ic m!ran geseah

eorla ofer eor"an #onne is $ower sum,

Never have I seen a larger nobleman than the one among you.

(Beowulf 247-8)

nfne h$ ws m!ra "onne !nig man %#er;

[E]xcept that he was larger than any other man. (Beowulf 1353)

Similarly, Beowulf and Grendel stand out from all other warriors on the night of their

battle because of their incredible strength. In particular, the poet remarks both that

Heorots [d]uru s!na onarn / f"rbendum fst (door, firm with fire-forged bonds,

immediately gave way) under the strength of Grendels handgrip and that Grendel ne

m#tte...on elran men / mundgripe m$ran (never met in another man a greater handgrip)

than Beowulfs (Beowulf 721-2, 751-3). In addition, Beowulf resembles Grendel walking

along wrcl$stas (the tracks of exile) when, later in the poem, having lost most of his

retainers, the hero returns from war against the Frisians an earm $nhaga or a wretched,

solitary being (Beowulf 1352, 2368). Of course, Beowulfs condition as outcast is a

consequence of his superior strength and bravery, which are consistent with goodness,

especially according to heroic morality. Grendel, on the other hand, is exiled as a result

of his monstrous appearance and an inherited affiliation with evil. Nevertheless, through

this mirroring the poet seems to be making a deliberate connection between the hero, who

should stand for goodness, and the monster, who should stand for evil, and therefore

begins to confound expected binary moral distinctions.

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The poet also narrates from Grendels perspective as the monster enters Heorot.

At this point, the poet includes the following intensely sympathetic passage, which I cited

earlier in my introduction:

Fand !" #!r inne !elinga gedriht

swefan fter symble; sorge ne c$#on,

wonsceaft wera.

Then inside he found the company of noblemen

sleeping after a feast; they did not know sorrow,

the misery of men. (Beowulf 118-120)

The situation of this quotation immediately before the violent events that follow, namely

Grendels slaughter of countless Danes, provides the reader with an increased

understanding of his actions. Grendels violence might be interpreted as retribution, an

attempt to inflict misery on the men who, unlike himself, sorge ne c!"on or did not

know sorrow. The poet reminds the reader of this image of Grendel as joyless on the

night he encounters Beowulf. He describes the monster, making his ritual approach to

Heorot, as dr#amum bed$led (deprived of joys, Beowulf 721) and, at the end of the

battle, notes that Grendel retreats, fatally injured, to his wynl#as w%c (joyless den,

Beowulf 821).

Even while Grendel is made surprisingly sympathetic in his battle against

Beowulf, the hero is made to look quite monstrous. Choosing to fight, like his monstrous

opponent, without a weapon, Beowulf gruesomely tears off Grendels arm with his

hands: seonowe onsprungon, / burston b&nlocan (the sinews sprang open, the joints

burst, Beowulf 817-8). He then revels in his butchery, hanging Grendels severed arm

from the roof of Heorot as a t&cen sweotol (clear sign) of what the hero undoubtedly

considers a triumph (Beowulf 833). But Grendles gr&pe (Grendels grasp) suspended

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from the ceiling instead seems an emblem of something quite disturbingnamely, the

destructive power of one monstrous handgrip over another (Beowulf 836). Thus, the

poems first battle between man and monster already leaves the reader with an

impression that the hero is somewhat monstrous, while the m!nsca"a (evil-destroyer)

is somewhat human and sympathetic. Andy Orchard notes that Grendels label

m!nsca"a itself points to his ambiguous position between man and monster:

Twice he is described as se manscea"a (lines 712 and 737), in contexts

which suggest that the poet may be playing on the two senses of the

homographs man (crime, wickedness) and man (man)... Grendel is

certainly the wicked destroyer, but he is also both the destroyer of men,

and the man-shaped destroyer. (31)

Indeed, this pun is emblematic of the way in which the poet seems generally to play with

notions of monstrousness and humanity in Beowulfs battle against Grendel.

Superficially, Grendels mother seems even darker and more inhuman than her

son. She first appears in the poem on a mission to avenge Grendels death. Although a

mothers wish to avenge her son may inspire sympathy in a modern reader, such an

activity would be entirely inappropriate for a woman and, therefore, horrific in the

Anglo-Saxon society of the poem. Although Hrothgars wife Wealhtheow and Hygelacs

wife Hildeburh also suffer the loss of kin and countrymen, they remainin contrast to

Grendels motherhospitable and gracious throughout the poem, never participating in

violence. Indeed, Paul Acker suggests that, even though Grendel and his mother commit

similar crimes, Grendels mothers violent intention alone makes her more monstrous as

a woman than her son:

That a female creature and more particularly a maternal one takes this

revenge may have highlighted its monstrousness. Unlike Hildeburh and

Wealhtheow, Grendels mother acts aggressively, arguably in a fashion

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reserved for men. The similarity of her actions to that of her son, the fact

that she is following in her sons (bloody) footsteps, is emphasized. (705)

The poet also emphasizes Grendels mothers monstrousness in a number of ways

more obvious to the modern reader. For instance, when Beowulf arrives at her

underwater residence to avenge the death of Hrothgars adviser schere, his visit is

reminiscent of a katabasis in which Grendels mother functions as the ruler of an

underworld. The water, dr!orig ond gedr!fed (blood-stained and stirred up, Beowulf

1417), is full of s"dracan (sea-dragons) and nicras (water-monsters, Beowulf 1426,

1427) that attack the hero as he descends. In addition, Beowulfs fight against Grendels

mother proves far more challenging than his battle against her son. While the hero

defeats Grendel handily without arms, Grendels mother nearly kills Beowulf even

though he is equipped with helmet, mail-shirt, and a sword that n"fre...t hilde ne sw#c /

manna "ngum (never failed any man at battle, Beowulf 1460-1). But this sword does

fail Beowulf against Grendels mother and, falling victim to many of her blows, it is

Beowulfs mail-shirt that gebearh f!ore (saved his life, Beowulf 1548). In fact, it is

likely that Beowulf would not have killed Grendels mother without the magic sword he

finds in her hall, the blade of which gemealt (melted) and forbarn (burned-up,

Beowulf 1615, 1616) once immersed in her blood.

And yet, in many ways, Grendels mothers actions seem to mirror precisely those

of the poems good rulers. Throughout the poem, men frequently avenge kin and protect

halls. Beowulf himself avenges numerous deaths, including those of his lords Hygelac

and Heardred and of the men from Hrothgars company slaughtered by Grendel and his

mother. Similarly, Grendels mothers attempt to defend her home, which the poet

describes as a hr$fsele (roofed-hall, Beowulf 1515), is not unlike Hrothgars attempts to

39

defend Heorot. Certainly, avenging kin and countrymen and defending ones hall are the

very deeds sanctioned in the poems maxims as heroic virtues. But these actions, of

course, are only sanctioned for men. As a result, although Grendels mothers behavior

mirrors that of the archetypal g!d cyning, her image is undoubtedly a dark reflection of

Hrothgar, Beowulf, Scyld, or Beow. This darkness is also manifested in the monstrosity

and mysteries of her hall. The perversity of Grendels mothers heroic actions might be

explained as her own willful corruption of the heroic code in order to commit evils or, in

a more complicated way, as a mirror that reveals the darkness inherent in that heroic

code. As Acker contends, Grendels mothers horrors reside in (or are attributed to) her

maternal nature, but through her is projected an anxiety over the failure of vengeance

as a system of justice (703).

These first two battles demonstrate that Grendel and his mother, while labeled

monstrous, are not so different from their apparently good human opponents. In the case

of Grendels mother, this mirroring reveals the inherent violence, or perhaps even the

monstrosity, of the heroic code itself. Upon review, some of this monstrousness may be

apparent even in the poems earliest images of the heroic code. Recall that the verdict

"t ws g!d cyning sums up the following description of Scylds deeds: Oft Scyld

Sc#fing scea"ena "r#atum, / monegum m$g"um meodosetla oft#ah, / egsode eorlas

(Often Scyld Scefing withheld hall-seats from troops of enemies, many peoples, and

terrified warriors, Beowulf 4-6). Although this account of Scyld denying his enemies

benevolence and terrifying armies prove him supremely capable of protecting his

kingdom, he commits violence in service of vengeance just like Grendel and his mother.

These initial lines about Scyld Scefing gesture to the larger pattern of feuding among men

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in the heroic society of the poem, which is also promoted by the notions of vengeance

and protection embedded in the heroic code. The Beowulf poet thus hints at the problem

of an ethos that sanctions such violence and destruction even in the opening passage of

his poem, a point he develops in Beowulfs first two battles and makes explicit in the

heros final fight against the dragon.

Fifty years after he defeats Grendel and his mother, Beowulf faces his third

monstrous opponent under quite different circumstances. Now king of the Geats,

Beowulf is in essentially the same position as Hrothgar fifty years earlier. As an aged

ruler, he must still protect his kingdom against a dragon, which, incensed by the theft of

his treasure, wreaks widespread slaughter and destruction. As I assert in my introduction,

the dragon is physically the most monstrous and other of Beowulfs three enemies. In

addition to having a body that is byrnende and gebogen (burning [and] coiled, Beowulf

2569), he is f!ftiges f"tgemearces / lang (fifty foot-lengths long, Beowulf 3042-3) and

older than #r$ohund wintra (three-hundred years, Beowulf 2278), the length of time he

has been guarding his hoard. The dragon also nihtes fl$oge% (flies through the night,

Beowulf 2273) and breathes wlf&re (deadly fire, Beowulf 2582).

In Beowulfs third battle, the dragon does not elicit any of the sympathy that

Grendel does nor does he demonstrate the same familial loyalty as Grendels mother. He

seems entirely non-human. And yet, the dragon still participates in something of a heroic

code based on vengeance. He resides in a hall filled with riches, which he protects,

thoroughly avenging any injury to his realm. Described so abstractly, this image is not

far from that of Hrothgar at the beginning of the poem, who presides over sincf'ge

(treasure-adorned) Heorot and desperately tries to protect the hall from Grendels

41

attacks (Beowulf 167). But the dragons existence is a solitary one, divorced from the

kinship and vassalage of the human heroic code and dependent on hoarding rather than

distribution of treasure. Hrothgar himself warns against such treasure hoarding and

obsession with worldly life and possessions. He tells the story of the evil king Heremod,

who, like Beowulf, was outstanding in heroic gfits: hine mihtig God mgenes wynnum, /

eafe!um st"pte ofer ealle men (mighty God raised him in the joys of strength and in

power over all men, Beowulf 1716-17). But Heremod used these gifts for evil and

gew"ox...t# wlfealle / ond t# d"a$cwalum Deniga l"odum (brought about slaughter and

deaths to the Danish people, Beowulf 1711), br"at...b"odgen"atas (killed table-

companions, Beowulf 1713), and nallas b"agas geaf / Denum fter d#me (never gave

rings to Danes in pursuit of glory, Beowulf 1719-20). Ultimately, Heremod, a ruler gone

astray, and the dragon, the most monstrous and inhuman creature in the entire poem, look

quite a bit alike.

Hrothgar directs his sermon about Heremod to Beowulf before the hero returns to

Hygelacs kingdom, commanding him, %& !" l'r be !on, / gumcyste ongit (Teach

yourself by this, understand manly virtue, Beowulf 1722-3). He even prophecies that

Beowulf, unlike Heremod, scealt t# fr#fre weor!an / eal langtw(dig l"odum !(num (shall

become a very lasting help to [his] people, Beowulf 1707-8). But the circumstances

Beowulf faces in the final episode of the poem and the consequences of his actions

demonstrate that the path to becoming a g#d cyning instead of another Heremod is not as

clear as Hrothgars sermon and the maxims throughout the poem imply. The heroic code

privileges a rulers needs to acquire fame and protect his kingdom. Beowulf attempts to

do both these things when he determines to fight the dragon and, in many ways, this

42

choice seems to emphasize Beowulfs heroic virtue. He even insists on facing the dragon

alone, remarking to his retainers:

Nis !t "ower s#$,

n" gemet mannes nefne m#n %nes,

!t h" wi$ %gl!cean eofo"o d!le,

eorlscype efne.

It is not your undertaking,

nor is it fitting for any man except me alone,

to deal out strength, even heroism,

against the monster. (Beowulf 2532-5)

But despite this great show of bravery, Beowulf still cannot adequately protect his

kingdom. Beowulf eventually defeats the dragonof course, not without the help of his

retainer Wiglaf but he loses his life in the process. Thus, Beowulf leaves his kingdom

virtually leaderless and vulnerable to the even more destructive attacks of the Swedes and

Frisians.

As a result, in attempting to uphold the heroic code, seeking both to protect his

people and achieve glory, Beowulf falls short of absolute goodness. The poet expresses

the moral ambiguity of the heros final actio