Critical Essay on Beowulf

Writing
a Critical Essay on Beowulf:

Beowulf is the oldest example of the Anglo-Saxon literature and probably the oldest example of Old English literature. The poem consists of 3182 lines and is supposed to be a real treasure, because very few ancient texts survived in their full variant till modern times. The poem was written in 7 – 8th century but the first mention about it was only in 10th century AD. The poem consists of two chapters and describes the life of the main character Beowulf, who was the warrior from Scandinavian tribe of Geats. The hero probably got his name from the names of the animals “bear” and “wolf” and according to another version the name Beowulf comes from “bee” and “wolf”.

In the first chapter of the book which is much longer than the second one, young Beowulf, being powerful and full of ambitiousness, defeated Grendel, a big monster who attacked Danes all the time. In order to take revenge for her son Grendel’s mother tried to kill Beowulf but failed and he defeated her too.

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His action saved Denmark from the threat of Grender and Beowulf got his fame and became the ruler of Geats. The second chapter of the poem describes another Beowulf’s deed – the defeat of the dragon that was the threat to his people. Unfortunately, Beowulf dies because of serious wounds received in the battle. Beowulf’s death is observed not like a tragedy, but like an honourable end for the brave combatant. The writer of the poem focused not only on the deeds of his characters but also on their words which reflected their cleverness, brevity and the values of that epoch.

Beowulf is one of the oldest examples of Anglo-Saxon literature which survives till our times and the student is able to analyze the poem from all sides. The young professional is asked to complete an objective research of the poem, dwelling on the characters, the historic background on the text, the geographical information about the places the events took place. It is important to find similarities between other ancient Scandinavian texts in order to catch the common roots of the ancient Scandinavian culture. One should analyze the plot, the style of writing, the important moments in the text and the technical organization of the poem.

Critical essay is a special type of essay which requires objective approach towards the research and supply of the exclusively original and reliable facts as the evidence of the student’s opinion. Of course, it is not easy to prepare the right structure for the paper at once, so one is able to do it relying on the free example critical essay on Beowulf written online. The student can learn about the format of the paper and the methods of the research of the problem reading a free sample critical essay of Beowulf.