Modern culture and technology has advanced, but there are many aspects of the modern student's life that still resembles the Anglo-Saxon lives portrayed in Beowulf. The text is full of themes, such as the characteristics of a good leader, that can teach students life lessons.
Throughout the poem, Beowulf is portrayed as a remarkable leader and warrior. The characteristics of Beowulf outline how an Anglo-Saxon must live. A hero must be virtuous and brave, never backing away from a challenge. This virtuous quality of Beowulf is shown throughout political issues today. Politicians must act according to a certain code or else they won't gain the people's trust and respect, therefore being denied an office. If they can't be trusted they won't be voted on. Courage is another one of Beowulf's qualities that must be shown in leaders of our world. They must make decisions for their people to thrive in our world, whether that be war or peacetime decisions, they still greatly affect us all. Leaders must be brave enough to make decisions through adversity, much like Beowulf taking on Grendel, to be able to help the people they lead. Our students can benefit from reading the text and examining Beowulf's qualities so they can compare them to their lives and politics.
The conflict in the text, the struggle of good versus evil, can also be eye-opening for our students. Grendel, his mother, and the dragon are vengeful and wrathful, personifying evil. Beowulf's battles with them are a metaphor and physical representation of good versus evil. With the violence surrounding us today, it is easy to see the personification of both sides of good and evil. Students can make a comparison, noting how Anglo-Saxons grappled with the issues of good and evil and how we do today. They will notice some definite similarities.
It can be argued that our society looks vastly different than that of Beowulf's, which may be true. We have technology that allows us to fly across the ocean and talk to someone from a different country, but human nature hasn't changed. There is good and evil in the world around us. Jealousy, betrayal, and cowardice can be seen in any social setting along with bravery and nobility. It benefits our students to read this text, not only because it is a monumental text in terms of literary history (although that's definitely important), because it teaches about human nature and gives a code for living that can give our students perspective on many modern situations personally and globally.
Beowulf is a pretty fascinating piece of literature. I urge you to read it for yourself so you can participate in the consumption of literary history.
This week I'll be discussing Dante's Inferno. I wish I had time to do all three sections of The Divine Comedy, but I only have time for one section and this one is a work of art that's influence many, many artists.
The schedule will probably be similar to this past week, but I'll do an introduction and background because Dante is a genius, summaries for the text every day, then a culminating post about the importance to modern students.
Three more texts left. Can you believe it? The summer has flown by. Must have been from reading all of these epics.
Tomorrow will be our history day, so get excited to learn a little about Dante. Until then,
Cassy
No comments:
Post a Comment