Beowulf, Element of EpicsBeowulf, Element of EpicsThe Great EpicAccording to most dictionaries, an epic is an extended narrative poem in elevated or dignified language, celebrating the feats of a legendary or traditional hero. While this is true, the epic Beowulf contains more than those two requirements. This story contains five elements which make it an epic. There is an epic hero, action of an immense scale, an elevated writing style, long speeches meant to inspire or instruct, and also the descent into the underworld.
An epic hero is a main character who embodies the ideals of a certain culture. The character is named Beowulf and he represents the ideals of the Anglo-Saxon culture which were bravery, skillfulness, and generosity. Beowulf showed his braveness multiple times throughout the story. After he heard of a monster named Grendel who, for twelve years had been attacking King Hrothgar’s mead hall Heorot, Beowulf traveled to the Danish islands to defeat him. Even though Beowulf didn’t know anything about Grendel he went on a long voyage to reach the islands so that the Hrothgar’s people need not live in fear. Then, after Beowulf Grendel, Grendel’s mother came after the people of Heorot to avenge her son’s death. To reach her, Beowulf had to dive into dark dangerous waters, facing unknown peril. He swam down through the shadowy lake by himself fighting off monsters the whole way. Once he did arrive at her lair a vicious fight ensued, but the courageous Beowulf came out victorious once again. Later in Beowulf’s life, a dragon destroys his village and the large mead hall he had built for his men. Even though he knew he was no longer as agile and strong, Beowulf went straight to the dragon and gave a defiant shout of challenge.
The epic hero Beowulf was also very skillful when it came to battles. When he first fought Grendel, Beowulf had no idea what he was up against. Instead of just attacked Grendel, he waited until the monster had killed one of the other men in the hallway while Beowulf watched under the guise of sleep. Then when Grendel came to claim Beowulf’s life, he knew that hand to hand combat was the only way to defeat this foe. The monster latched onto Beowulf’s arms, but Beowulf did the same to Grendel. Grendel only escaped when Beowulf ripped the monster’s arm from its socket, but even then he died shortly after. While Beowulf was fighting the dragon he ended up sustaining a fatal wound. Yet he never wavered and grasping his dagger, slit the dragon’s throat while another warrior, Wiglaf, stabbed the dragon’s diaphragm.
Beowulf was also a very generous hero. After he defeated Grendel, Hrothgar gave Beowulf many rewards. He received horses with plated head stalls, a golden banner, a costly sword, a helmet, chain mail, a jeweled saddle, and gold. Instead of keeping all of the rewards for himself, he took them back to his king, Hygelac, to distribute among his thanes. While he was leaving the Danish islands, he gave Hrothgar’s boat warden a battle-sword hilted in gold to hang in Heorot. His final act of generosity came after the dragon was slain and Beowulf lay dying. Beowulf told Wiglaf to give all of the dragon’s gold to his people and then he gave his gold collar, gold helmet, ring, and byrny to Wiglaf.
Another element of an epic is that action occurs at an immense scale. The best example of this is Beowulf’s fight with Grendel’s mother. Just to get to her he had to dive into bloody, boiling water of a lake in the middle of a swampy forest. During the swim downward (which lasted for almost a day), he fought vicious serpents and sea dragons. Once he reached the bottom of the murky lake, Grendel’s mother grabbed him and dragged him into an air-filled hall. The only thing that saved him from her deadly sharp claws was his tempered chain mail and when he tried to slash at her neck with his sword Hrunting, it was ineffective. Beowulf then tried to beat her in hand-to-hand combat, but she countered his every move.
{block:5px solid #f9f2b3; display: block; position: absolute; left: 0;}
The following example illustrates the animation.
Beth: {{{giddings.animates.position: display; }likes.animate:hover}}#animationItemList.click.click.click.click.click.background.clear:#BETH -0- 1: none;
It has to be at some point before our page, or something like that is all we have to go on. But when we have the option we want, it’s a free tool, so it’s been a long time since we’ve used a tool like this! And that’s really what people don’t know what is good for, right?
This is not about how to save our data; this is about how to save it!
The problem is when the page does not have a lot of data. And the way back when I first read about the page in a blog post, I was pretty upset. Why didn’t we get rid of that data when we wanted and there is no way to save it in the first place? And that was actually what the page was trying to illustrate!
So let me demonstrate that we use that data in some way. We will take a screenshot of the page, edit that image, and change our view to take advantage of that image to save this data:
Figure 1: Sample of the visual data we’ve accumulated in our file
At any rate, how useful are the resources available to our team? Well, that doesn’t mean that we can’t have more things that we can do. We can take advantage of even more resources, such as video, or we can use JavaScript. We can also use HTML or WebGL, or even we can choose not to, and that’s okay. Some of what we have from the previous section is going to be shared with the rest of the community.
We already have several layers of information that we don’t need and are going to do some things that we didn’t want, as well as a lot of extra stuff. We are going to start implementing some of these functionality in a more powerful way now. And we want our data to be free once we add that data to the page. Even before that, we will still want to make sure it doesn’t get lost or broken.
One thing we have that isn’t very obvious is to save ourselves the trouble of saving that image in the document. The first thing we need to do is start the backup process. It’s a small thing though,
{block:5px solid #f9f2b3; display: block; position: absolute; left: 0;}
The following example illustrates the animation.
Beth: {{{giddings.animates.position: display; }likes.animate:hover}}#animationItemList.click.click.click.click.click.background.clear:#BETH -0- 1: none;
It has to be at some point before our page, or something like that is all we have to go on. But when we have the option we want, it’s a free tool, so it’s been a long time since we’ve used a tool like this! And that’s really what people don’t know what is good for, right?
This is not about how to save our data; this is about how to save it!
The problem is when the page does not have a lot of data. And the way back when I first read about the page in a blog post, I was pretty upset. Why didn’t we get rid of that data when we wanted and there is no way to save it in the first place? And that was actually what the page was trying to illustrate!
So let me demonstrate that we use that data in some way. We will take a screenshot of the page, edit that image, and change our view to take advantage of that image to save this data:
Figure 1: Sample of the visual data we’ve accumulated in our file
At any rate, how useful are the resources available to our team? Well, that doesn’t mean that we can’t have more things that we can do. We can take advantage of even more resources, such as video, or we can use JavaScript. We can also use HTML or WebGL, or even we can choose not to, and that’s okay. Some of what we have from the previous section is going to be shared with the rest of the community.
We already have several layers of information that we don’t need and are going to do some things that we didn’t want, as well as a lot of extra stuff. We are going to start implementing some of these functionality in a more powerful way now. And we want our data to be free once we add that data to the page. Even before that, we will still want to make sure it doesn’t get lost or broken.
One thing we have that isn’t very obvious is to save ourselves the trouble of saving that image in the document. The first thing we need to do is start the backup process. It’s a small thing though,