The Ruler's Relationship In Beowulf

Beowulf, king of the Geats, engages in battles in order to protect his community from physical creatures while King Arthur’s knights engage in spiritual battles against evil temptation which lurks around every corner. Beowulf proudly displays his prowess before he must confront Grendel, the “God-cursed brute” when he declares with bold confidence that he “can calm the turmoil” (Heaney 11, 21). Beowulf boasts of his strength, pledging to kill Grendel with his bare hands. Grendel, the cursed descendant of Cain, enjoys death and destruction, ruining Hrothgar’s reputation with every attack on his kingdom. The monster kills one of his men, angering the Thanes and encouraging them to fight

According to the epic poem, Beowulf, there is a relationship in the Goods, which is defined by Aristotle as where all activities are done to aim at the final goal, between the kings in queens. The relationship between the Good of a King and Queen is to gain the final good that is having a good reputation.

Throughout history rulers have always been protective of their kingdoms. In hopes of always being in control of their territory, rulers develop special relationships with the people to protect them. This relationship was usually achieved by of instilling fear into the minds of their warriors, or instilling respect between each other. In the story Beowulf the relationship between the ruler and his thanes is that of honor, friendship, and respect.

Beowulf is a model of leadership for our own times because he is very courageous and his strength is super human like. His skills and traits would not be good in our times though because a leader of a nation in our time doesn’t need to be very courageous and very strong to fight off people or go to war.

In the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, the stupendous hero’s many great deeds often appear to be for other’s benefit, yet Beowulf’s final conquest exposes his lust for glory and fame, thereby showing his lack of concern for anything else. This lust for immense glory and fame feeds his ego and causes his death and the imminent downfall of his great people the Geats.

Beowulf comes and killed the monster named Grendel. After Beowulf kills Grendel, Grendel’s mother comes and Beowulf follows her into the Fen, a place full of evil things that hate the light. Beowulf kills Grendel’s mother and then returns to his homeland. At his homeland, Beowulf gives the gifts he received from killing Grendel’s mother and Grendel to his uncle, king Hygelac. In return for the gifts, Beowulf is granted all the land that he can cover in a day’s worth on his horse. For a while there is peace and Beowulf lives on his large area of land and tends to bees, but then the Friesians, an invading group of people come and kill king Hygelac. Then Hygelac’s son, Hardred becomes king, but he is also killed later. After Hygelac is killed and Hardred is killed later, Beowulf becomes king. but then a slave runs away because he was threatened to be beaten, and he steals a jeweled cup from a cave. The cave that he stole from was where the Firedrake lived. The Firedrake couldn’t catch the slave, but later that night, it burned a valley including the fields of grain, houses, and churches. By now Beowulf is old, but he still has a plan to kill the Firedrake. After Beowulf kills the Firedrake by having his bees sting it to death, Beowulf dies. I think that the thesis is that everybody has good and evil in them, but how you deal with the evil is what will decide if you are a good person. I also think that the thesis is that it isn’t as simple as good and evil because a good person can do an evil thing and an evil person can do a good thing.

The Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf touches on the vice of pride, and is instilled in the main character, Beowulf, the great and mighty warrior. His boasting and arrogance when first dropping anchor at Heorot transitions throughout the poem, and, in contrast with his ideal kingsmanship, motivates him to accomplish and overcome the many challenges he faces as an epic hero. The contrast of his absent humility in the rise and fall of the story help promote the progression of the story, through its different purposes. Beowulf, when first landing upon Hrothgar’s kingdom, boasts, which does not go unchallenged, so that he might gain the trust of the Danes, but when knowingly facing his last battle, uses bragging to comfort and brace himself for his ultimate demise.

Beowulf, the defender of Hrothgar and Heorot, exhibits far more complicated (and less sincere) shades of revenge than the Grendel’s mother. At the end of the day, Beowulf’s goal is to become the preeminent warrior in all the land. In his society, the only way to gain such widespread celebrity is through courageous and self-endangering acts. Beowulf masks these deeds with a façade of seeking revenge; he supposedly comes to Heorot to save the Danes from Grendel’s terror, but his true motives lie in becoming a hero. His reward is not the pride of doing a good deed; Beowulf is rewarded with lavish and expensive gifts.

Generally when we think of kings, we think of the noble king who helps save the kingdom or princess. There are many times in the course of history where there have been examples of good kings, but there have been examples of bad kings as well. So what characteristics make a good king? Bravery, courage, wisdom and strength are some of the many qualities that make for an excellent king.

Hrothgar's intentions are sociocentric: by employing the strength of “many peoples” (76) to build the “legendary hall” (412) of Heorot, he brings his people together and gives his people a legacy, ensuring a future for Denmark.

Heardred’s mistake in offering hospitality to the sons of Ohthere results in him being “mortally rewarded with wounds from a sword” (2386). Onela’s treatment of Heardred’s hospitality as treachery results in a cruel parody of hospitable exchange: a fatal sequence of assault and revenge. The fate of Heardred also serves to reaffirm that hospitality in this poem can never wholly seal itself from treachery and peril. Later on, in his report to King Hygelac after returning to Geatland, Beowulf speaks of how Hrothgar attempts to make peace between the Danes and Heathobards by marrying his daughter Freawaru to Ingel. In spite of the feud between the two sides, the Heathobards are obliged to host and entertain the Danes since a Danish princess is marrying the Heathobard king. But as Beowulf mentions, “the spear / is prompt to retaliate when a prince is killed” (2029-30). Paradoxically, the system of reciprocity here becomes a source of both Heathobards’ hospitality (as host) as much as their desire to retaliate against the Danes. Ultimately, the force of grievances outweighs the bond established through the offering of the bride as a gift: a guest who wears the heirloom snatched from the host’s father has betrayed hospitality, which invites retaliation from the host. This suggests the limitations of hospitality as a principle of socio-economic

Leadership skills are exemplified in the poem Beowulf through Beowulf’s characteristics and actions and his ability to lead and motivate his thanes. Unwillingness to give in to pride is also a leadership skill revealed in Beowulf. Beowulf displays courage and confidence during the battles of all three beasts of Beowulf. He ensures that his warriors trust in him enough to believe that they may be able to achieve a definite goal together. Beowulf, however, does allow his pride to obscure his vision of the future, therefore he does not possess all the necessary skills a leader should have.

The epic poem Beowulf comments on the unsustainability of chivalry, a social system based off building one’s own honor, strength, and reputation. Similarly, the engraving Knight, Death, and the Devil acts as a visual representation of the inherent flaws of chivalry as a social system. Beowulf, the protagonist of Beowulf, is written as the most powerful man in the world, capable of besting anyone in physical competence—the seeming embodiment of chivalry. This same definition of chivalry is depicted in Durer’s engraving: a lone knight in shining armor. Despite whether or not they were pushed into solitude, the protagonists of these two texts similarly show how chivalry can be undermined when its heroes are solitary figures who do not develop a network of allies. To defend this argument, I will first discuss why the two heroes have been pushed into solitude. Second, I will analyze the warnings given to each protagonist about their respective solitude. Third, I will explore the results following the neglect of the warning, and fourth, I will talk about how each hero’s misguided faith leads to the demise of chivalry. Lastly, I will introduce a counterclaim and analyze its strengths and weaknesses against the thesis.

It is the failure to honor this code that nearly costs Beowulf his life however. After Grendel’s mother attacks Heorot, Beowulf once again sets out on a mission of vengeance for Hrothgar. Hrothgar promises Beowulf great treasure if he can kill Grendel’s mother. This in itself is a departure from comitatus, because having pledged allegiance to Hrothgar, Beowulf should not need the incentive of treasure. Fighting nobly is treasure enough. Beowulf then swims to the troll’s cave alone and engages in a massive one-on-one battle with Grendel’s mother. Although he eventually emerges victorious, society deems that he was weaker because he was fighting alone.

“[Beowulf is] is recognized … as an embodiment of the contradictory nature of heroic ideals” (Wanner. Page 2). Beowulf’s religiously following of the Comitatus leads him to his doom. Beowulf’s lust for fame and hubris lead him to break the code of Comitatus. Beowulf as a king was supposed to let new heroes at the time take care of the dragon. Instead, he gets severely injured by the dragon because of his huge ego and pride to slay the dragon alone. Ironically, at the end Beowulf would not have even killed the dragon without help from the emerging hero Wiglaf. At the end Beowulf breaks the code he followed by heart only to be shown at his death, that one must remember their rank in the feudal