Achilles And Beowulf Comparison Essay

Achilles and Beowulf were two characters that had an amazing power that made his name lives for hundreds of years. Great warriors need some to have some specific characteristics to reach their fame because we have seem in some heroes that they have gods strong, a unique way to be and goals to achieve. Comparing the character of Achilles and Beowulf who were two of the best warrior of the history we could know if there are an outline to be a great warrior.

Both Beowulf and Achilles are poetic characters, who hail from different eras of history and different cultural backgrounds. While each is unique in his own way, the two heroes also share similar characteristics. This paper will compare and contrast the medieval Germanic hero Beowulf with the classical Greek hero Achilles (of Homer's Iliad), and show how the two are similar and how the two are different.

The Old English poem, Beowulf, doesn’t have an author. Nobody is one hundred percent sure about the history of Beowulf. All they know is that its about a warrior and a monster in conflict. Homer wrote “The Iliad,” roughly a thousand years before Beowulf. They were both a part of the ancient Greek world. Though Homer was blind, some scholars believe that a philosopher as a blind man had an exceptional inner vision. (72) The theme revolves around the war between Greece and Troy in twelve hundred B.C. Beowulf and Achilles both fulfill their role of an epic hero by making sacrifices, following the rules by their own individual beliefs and cultures. Also by showing

Beowulf and The Iliad are both famous works of literature that have been studied for hundreds of years. Both Beowulf and Achilles are great heroes in their Epics. An important component of these Heroic Epics are their heroes and their how the act. Beowulf always exhibits the traits that would make him an epic hero, and would never do anything dishonorable or that wasn not for the benefit of everyone around him, while Achilles had moments that made him look dishonorable and not heroic. Overall, Beowulf is the better hero because he never gave up and fought for God, while Achilles refused to fight and disrespected Greek traditions such as respecting fallen foes.

Reading through Beowulf I began to compare it to the last great epic I read, Homer’s Odyssey. While the Odyssey and Beowulf are each examples of both historic and modern ideas of heroism, the acts of Beowulf’s hero seem to fit better within its context.

In the text, we see that Beowulf is not yet a king, but, a king to come. He is not quick to react without thinking. Beowulf ordered his boat, picked out his men. A Saviour hero, thanking God after sailing. In the film, the heathen of gods was good, but Christ Jesus was bad.

Set in an era long before the customs of contemporary western civilization, Heaney’s translation of Beowulf follows the courageous hero through an epic journey that solidifies his figurative immortality. Much like the Greek’s great Odysseus or the Roman’s devout Aeneus, Beowulf serves as an impressive and almost godlike warrior for the Anglo-Saxons, providing insight into the constituents of greatness for that society. Confident in his abilities and committed to his task, Beowulf voluntarily embarks on a mission to defeat Grendel, the treacherous enemy of the Danish kingdom. Beowulf solidifies his classification as an epic hero as he satisfies his quest for glory, saves a kingdom from destruction, and reveals the values of an era.

This essay is a character analysis that compares and contrast the two main characters of the epic “Beowulf”. The essay informs the reader of the traits the two characters have in common including their cocky personalities and their impossible strength. It also mentions the many opposing characteristics of the two characters including how brave or cowardly they are, and weather or not they want to help or hurt people. Many direct quotes from the epic “Beowulf” are also within the essay to help support each allegation, giving proof to the characteristics identified.

tragic hero and characterized by its standards. He was an influential man of stature who had a

Every epic hero possesses certain heroic characteristics. Beowulf, like other epic heroes, possesses the following heroic qualities: epic heroes are superhuman types of beings. They have a noble birth and show great bravery. They display great intelligence and resourcefulness. They have a reverence for G-d and for the values of their society. They are dominant male figures and suffer severe pain, but in the end, they conquer evil (Vivone 9/27/99). In addition to Beowulf’s heroic qualities, he is very strong. Beowulf was said to have “the strength of thirty [men] in his mighty handgrip” (Bloom 11). Early proof of Beowulf’s extraordinary strength is evidenced by his dismemberment of Grendel’s limb, the fight in the cave under water, and the

“Beowulf” and “The Iliad” have plenty of differences but also have plenty of similarities within their stories, structure, and writing styles. For instance they are both poems but “The Iliad” is an ancient poem while “Beowulf” is an epic poem. They are both poems but they are two different types of poems, this is just one of the many similarities and differences in these two stories.

Most of us have heard of modern day heroes such as Spiderman, Superman, and the Hulk. Each is a hero to many children. Heroes are introduced to people early on in life usually as fictional characters, but as children grow older their perceptions of heroes alter. The characteristics of a hero are usually based around the ideas of a society or culture. In the epic Beowulf, the main character is thought of as a hero. Beowulf, a pagan warrior and the main character of the epic, shows certain characteristics such as bravery, loyalty, and generosity, which portray him as a hero. It is interesting how modern day heroes show the much of the same qualities as Beowulf.

What are the main characteristics of a larger-than-life epic hero? An epic hero is a brave and powerful warrior who is motivated to fight both internal and external conflicts to achieve glory and ranks above a normal man. In Homer’s epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey, Achilles and Odysseus are the well-known heroes. Achilles fights Hektor outside the walls of Troy because Hektor killed his best friend, Patroclus. After fighting in the Trojan War, Odysseus takes on a journey to return back to Ithaca to see his wife, Penelope, and his son, Telemachus. Through his use of tone, figurative language, mood, and imagery, Homer’s epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey show how Achilles and

Heroes bring a hope to people whom they protect. Heroes bring people joy and bring a sense of relaxation to the people of their society because they play such an important role in lives everywhere. Heroes are complex rather than unembellished because they can fight dragons to defend their kingdom, or create a non-profit foundation to enhance the quality of life for more than 2,000 underprivileged kids. Heroes in our present day can be very complex because a person’s viewpoint on a hero’s life can be a completely different than the way another person looks at that same hero. Thomas Davis Sr. can be extremely comparable to Beowulf but they also have major differences.

In Homer’s epic, the Iliad, the legendary, has no two characters that are so similar yet so different as Greek warrior, Achilles, and the Prince of Troy, Hector. Achilles is the strongest fighter in the Greek side, and Hector is the strongest Trojan. They are both put into the mold of a hero that their respective societies have put them into; however; it is evident that they are both extremely complex characters with different roles within their society and with their families, and with the gods.