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Biblical Allusions In Beowulf

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Beowulf is a poem written down and told in the Anglo-Saxon era. It is an epic poem written by an unknown author. An epic poem is long narrative poem dealing with the trial and achievements of a hero or heroes. This epic poem is about the trial of a man named Beowulf who fights off creatures and is king of the Geats. Beowulf is a primary epic because it starts in oral tradition and eventually gets written down hundreds of years later. Beowulf was first poem to ever be written down in old english and it was translated to modern English by Seamus Heaney. It is believed that Beowulf was originally written down by a Christian monk. This is because there are Christian references all throughout the book even though the poem was originally spoken in a pagan, Anglo-Saxon way. Pagans are people who don’t know of, or don’t believe in the bible. Beowulf was one of the first recorded bridges between pagan and Christian values and beliefs. An artifact is an …show more content…

During that time Beowulf was orally told. Throughout time, it had slowly drawn in more and more Christian references and biblical allusions. In the story while everyone is celebrating at Heorot, they talk about the “waters rising” and “drowning people for retribution.” This is an obvious biblical allusion to the story of Noah in the bible. This story that was probably added by the christian monk who supposedly wrote it. Pope Gregory made christian rituals similar to pagan rituals and it gave people hope and connected the two groups. For example, pagans celebrate the winter solstice. Christians celebrate Jesus’ birth around the same time so Pope Gregory condensed the celebrations together so that both groups were celebrating together. The celebrations were previously very similar. This influenced many pagans to become christian. This is one of the events that started the major transition between Anglo-Saxon pagans and Anglo-Saxon

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