The ambiguity present in the text of Beowulf gives credence to either the virtuous heroism, or inhuman monstrosity, of its eponymous hero. The heroic or monstrous identities of Beowulf and his adversaries are constituted in and through the cultural environment enveloping them, which not only inform their actions but inscribe meanings onto their corporeal bodies. While there has been ample discussion on the Grendelkin’s bodies and how they become recognizable as monstrous adversaries, Beowulf’s body has often been left out of the loop. Although this is mainly due to the lack of detailed description for the heroic body, it should be noted that Grendel’s body, which has been meticulously examined in critical works, also lack concrete depiction. This ambiguity leads to a significant blurring between the heroic and monstrous identities, hinting at the poet’s commentary on the complex nature of Beowulf’s heroism. The meaning inscribed on to Grendel’s sinful and mutilated body needs to be examined in relation to Beowulf’s heroic body in order to fully address the nuanced relationship between the two equally powerful subjects placed within the contemporary legal system. I propose that Beowulf’s responsibilities as a hero and a king simultaneously defines and complicates how his body and actions are meant to be read. I also argue that the poet uses Beowulf’s enemies, especially Grendel, to demonstrate the deeply flawed nature of the body-reading process in the Anglo-Saxon society.
Bodies in Beowulf, including the body of the hero himself, become subject to social reading which makes them legible and understandable in juridical contexts. While the Grendelkin’s bodies are mostly inscribed with legal meanings in relation to their criminality, Beowulf’s body is interpreted in more complex terms. Beowulf’s corporeal body almost seems intangible in the poem; as a hero and a king, his body is placed in an intricate web of social and cultural environment which controls how it should be viewed. John M. Hill, in his discussion of heroic body parts as the sacrificial synecdoche, argues that “[t]hrough action, the heroic warrior body asserts definitive differences between good man and beast, between hero and coward, between commitment and fear, renown and infamy, lawful warfare or what is right and terror,” making his body a “body dedicated to righteous action” (117). Thus Hill understands Beowulf’s body as an embodiment of righteous violence, contrary to Grendel’s body which becomes the site of corporal punishment. While this reading provides a useful way to situate the heroic and monstrous bodies within the same context of legal understanding, this dichotomy is not necessary set in stone. The process in which corporeal bodies are read tends to place the bodies of Beowulf and Grendel under certain criteria which underscore their size and strength, often rendering them indistinguishable from each other; yet, despite the contextual frame through which we read Beowulf’s body, the indistinguishableness from Grendel’s body—or the later enemies’ bodies—casts an insistent shadow that calls the heroic identity into question.
Notwithstanding the importance of body-reading in the poem, what is perceived as the lack of detailed description of Beowulf’s body partially becomes the reason why the hero’s material presence feels so impersonal and evasive. Beowulf’s body evades specific descriptions that can assist the audience in picturing it, and when it is described, it is strictly in relation to his physical strength disclosed in vaguely general terms. When Beowulf and his band arrive at the Danish shore, Hrothgar’s coast guard mentions that Beowulf is larger than anyone he has ever seen, impressing him more than any other warrior in the group (247-49). Likewise, Beowulf’s superhuman strength is noted especially in relation to his hand; Hrothgar comments that sailors have described the hero to be “brave in war, had the strength of thirty men in his hand-grip” (þæt he þritiges / manna mægen-cræft on his mund-gripe / heaþo-rof hæbbe; 379b-81a),[1] and the sword Beowulf uses to kill Grendel’s mother is reportedly “larger than any other man could bear into battle-play” (hit wæs mare ðonne ænig mon oðer / to beadu-lace ætberan meahte; 1260-61), making him the sole human capable of wielding such a weapon. Beowulf’s body is, then, described in terms of the strength it possesses rather than its physical traits that one can readily perceive as personal or human, being “vaguely outlined as simply massive, mighty and noble” (123) as Hill observes, almost as if Beowulf is more of an impersonal materialization of heroic prowess than a person.
The reading of Beowulf’s body is further problematized by his perceived similarities with Grendel, an association noted by many critics,[2] which complicates the demarcation between the heroic and monstrous bodies in the text. Beowulf’s massive body calls to mind the equally massive size of Grendel, whose severed head “took four to carry with painful effort to the gold-hall on a battle-shaft” (feower scoldon / on þæm wæl-stenge weorcum geferian / to þæm gold-sele Grendles heafod; 1637b-38). In accordance with Hrothgar’s assessment of his strength, Beowulf is later reported to have swum with thirty sets or armor in his arms when Hygelac was killed (2359-62), a number paralleled when Grendel seizes exactly thirty thanes during his first attack of Heorot (120-23). Although the focus on Beowulf’s size and strength is meant to testify to his heroic quality, as his appearance ensures his innate nobleness for the coast guard (249-51), his heroic body is described using a noticeably similar set of lexica to Grendel’s monstrous body. These similarities in description lead Andy Orchard to argue that Beowulf was seen as “a hero of a bygone and strictly secular age” (54) by the Christian Anglo-Saxon audience of the poem, finding echoes of such flawed heroes in Nordic sagas. While the troubling similarities between Beowulf and Grendel have been amply explored, with some of the notable studies bearing importance in this article as well, my interest lies in examining how that parallel is made possible rather than the significance of the parallel itself. The narration of Beowulf, as well as the comments offered by the characters, demonstrates the importance of understanding bodies in relation to identity; body-reading makes and unmakes the hero and his adversaries. Beowulf’s claim to heroic identity, and Grendel’s identity as an enemy to human society, depends on how their bodies are perceived and understood.
Studies on the Anglo-Saxon discourse of bodies in legal contexts provide useful information that can shed light on the body-reading process in the contemporary imagination.[3] The body-reading in Beowulf is heavily grounded in the juridical and cultural system surrounding the text, particularly maintaining close relationships with the concepts linked to hostility and martial valor; feud, criminality, monstrosity and heroism. As such, understanding how the bodies of Beowulf and his enemies differ from each other and what they have in common in relation to legal and social practices will be crucial in tracing how their bodies become legible. Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe suggests that mutilation as bodily punishment shifts from what was once an external sign of criminality to internalized guilt in late Anglo-Saxon society. She finds that the bodies inscribed with legal narratives become “texts of their behaviour and its lawful consequences” (“Body and Law in Late Anglo-Saxon England” 217), and in the case of ordeals, confess their sins through injuries or lack thereof. Physical wellbeing and spiritual health were thought to be interconnected, making the intricate body-reading process in the legal scenes such as ordeals possible. Building on O’Brien O’Keeffe’s argument but focusing on an earlier custom of injury tariffs and public (juridical) viewing of the victim’s body, Mary P. Richards argues that although the body in Anglo-Saxon law was a readable site on which the evidence of crime was inscribed, the boundaries between a punished criminal and a victim of violence could be easily blurred due to being almost solely based on the visuals. Although these two scholars discuss different time periods, with O’Brien O’Keeffe’s focusing on later and Richards earlier point in time respectively, they still illuminate how the audience from different eras might have interpreted the bodies, especially considering Beowulf’s own ambiguous location in time (largely assumed to be written between the 8th and 11th centuries). As studies on contemporary legal codes, the works of O’Brien O’Keefe and Richards understand the bodily inscription mainly in terms of juridical punishment or criminal offense impacting social identities. Andrew Rabin, locating a “convergence between the language used to portray the witness and that used to characterize the written legal document” (221) in Old English testimony statutes, demonstrates that the body was often understood as a legal text in the Anglo-Saxon judicial process. Rabin’s finding that the “body becomes the physical transcription of the law, drawing selfhood and subjectivity into a single, coherent text bearing witness to its own essential, legible, knowable identity” (235) locates the body firmly within the context of the legal environment, which inscribes onto it not only meanings but also subjecthood itself. The body in Anglo-Saxon society, then, was a tell-tale text composed of flesh and blood, as the site where inscriptions of cultural narratives met and often collided.
Of note here is the understanding of mutilation as punishment, and also as compensation, for the crimes committed by a specific body part. O’Brien O’Keeffe finds early Anglo-Saxon law deeply concerned with ensuring that every class of men and crimes has the appropriate price tag, as it were, attached to it, “detailing the wergelds (man-prices) for individuals of various ranks and the financial penalties and degrees of compurgation required for numerous classes of offences” (“Body and Law in Late Anglo-Saxon England” 215). As a mode of compensation for crimes, juridical mutilation assigning values and meanings to the body part is directly comparable to the system of wergild. Indeed, as Richards points out, mutilation often served as lawful punishment when the criminal was unable to make monetary compensation (105-108), almost as if the severed limb was regarded as a sort of substitute payment. Daniel O’Gorman, examining the public display of severed hands in Æthelstan’s law as punishment for counterfeiting, discovers a parallel to Grendel’s severed arm placed in Heorot.[4] As O’Gorman explains, “the guilty party has been distanced from the limb in such a way as to suggest that the misdeed lies in the severed element that is on display, and not in the body as a whole” (154). As the visible sign of the owner’s criminality, the severed hand is tantamount to the compensation, or payment, for the crime. Significantly, Grendel, prior to his battle with Beowulf and subsequent death, refuses to pay the Danes compensation for his crimes against them:
Forðam gesyne wearð
ylda bearnum, undyrne cuð
gyddum geomore þætte Grendel wan
hwile wið Hroþgar, hete-niðas wæg,
fyrene ond faehðe fela missera,
singale sæce; sibbe ne wolde
wið manna hwone mægenes Deniga,
feorh-bealo feorran, fea þingian,
ne þær nænig witena wenan þorfte
beorhtre bote to banan folmum (149b-58)
On that account it was made plain to the offspring of the ancients, disclosed and revealed grievously in narratives, that Grendel had for some time been in a struggle with Hrothgar, waged a war of aggression, crimes and feuding for many a season, continual persecution; he wanted no truce with any of the men of the force of the Danes, or to put aside all the killing, negotiate a settlement, nor did any of the senior councilors need expect gleaming compensation at the hands of the killer.
Interestingly, the narrator takes pains to consider any and all sorts of compensation or peacemaking efforts possible in the feud scenario, only to deny every single one of them. Grendel’s refusal to make “gleaming compensation” is made more incriminating in hindsight, since Beowulf discovers a vast amount of treasure in the underwater dwelling of the Grendelkin. Foreclosure of a settlement between the involved parties implies that the feud cannot truly end until one of the parties is annihilated by the other, signaling the prospect of certain doom for the hapless Danes. As Ben Reinhard notes, Grendel’s actions are befitting of a descendant of the biblical Cain, “an anti-type of the true Christian penitent” (379). Grendel’s stubborn refusal of human legal practices, or inability to conform to them, is what ultimately makes him “the enemy of humankind” (feond man-cynnes; 164).
Grendel’s feud with the Danes thus occupies the central position in his identity as a monster, and his subsequent mutilation by Beowulf marks his body as criminal and monstrous. Similar to the vague and ambiguous description of Beowulf’s physical traits, Grendel’s appearance is never described in specific terms aside from his large size and terrible strength. Michael Lapidge argues that the “Beowulf-poet’s oblique and allusive presentation of Grendel is a crucial feature of his art” (“Beowulf and the Psychology of Terror” 377), finding parallels between the description of Grendel’s approach to Heorot and modern psychological work on monster image in nightmares (“Beowulf and the Psychology of Terror” 388-94). Yet Grendel’s physicality is most vividly expressed in the scene of his battle with Beowulf, in which “fingers broke” (fingras burston; 760), and “on his shoulder an immense wound came into evidence, the muscles sprang asunder, the joints burst” (Lic-sar gebad / atol æglæca; him on eaxle wearð / syn-dolh sweotol, seonowe onsprungon, / burston ban-locan; 815b-18a), transforming the nightmarish monster into an injured creature with tangible, corporeal existence. As the end result of this bloody encounter, “the remains of the antagonist” (laþes lastas; 841) is put on display in Heorot for the Danes to see. It is worth noting that lastas, literally meaning tracks or paths, refashions the displayed arm into a path of interpretation of “the antagonist” Grendel. In light of the juridical understanding of Grendel’s criminality and his mutilation as punishment for it, it seems reasonable to interpret the severed arm in Heorot as a “token of his punishing defeat and a public spectacle for all to gaze upon in the morning light” (Hill 126). The narrator apparently agrees in positing the displayed arm as a sign that bears certain meaning to the spectators, stating “[i]t was a public indication when the battle-brave one set hand, arm, and shoulder — all of Grendel’s grasp was assembled there — under the vaulted roof” (þæt wæs tacen sweotol / syþðan hilde-deor hond alegde, / earm ond eaxle — þaer wæs eal geador / Grendles grape — under geapne hrof; 833b-36). Meanwhile, Leslie Lockett’s reading of the displayed arm adds a slight twist to the understanding of the arm in this celebratory scene. Although Lockett agrees that the dismembered arm is a form of penalty/payment with echoes of judicial mutilation, she argues the arm remains an ambiguous sign because it presumably “evoked at least as much apprehension and dread as optimism” (368) to the Anglo-Saxon audience of the poem, since the feud with the Grendelkin is not yet complete. The significance of the arm, however, still stands; Grendel’s criminal and monstrous body is represented through his arm, the object of “marvel” (wundor: 840) which embodies and testifies to the culpability of its owner. Since Grendel’s death occurs in the secluded and private environment of his abode, the arm stands in for Grendel himself—the criminality of the material body condensed into a single part, fragmented yet rife with judicial meanings.
Interestingly, the fragmentation of the legible body also occurs to Beowulf’s heroic body, down to the significance of the hand as the agent of one’s strength and deeds. Beowulf slays Grendel by tearing off his arm with his strong “hand-grip” (mundgripe or handgripe), a word used multiple times in the text, his hand being the symbol of his valor.[5] He describes his battle with Grendel as the “hand-to-hand combat of heroes” (hond-ræs hæleða; 2072), and his brief struggle with Grendel’s mother as “hand to hand” fight (þær unc hwile wæs hand gemæne; 2137). Yet with the hero’s hand thus fragmented to be assigned meaning, or to be inscribed with legible narratives testifying to what the whole body has experienced, the ominous parallel to a criminal’s fragmented/severed hand becomes difficult to ignore. This perhaps reflects potential anxiety lurking under the legal system of judicial mutilation and the public display of it. Mutilation in Anglo-Saxon England could function as punishment or compensation for crime, yet the injured body of a pitiful victim or a zealous warrior was precariously similar to the penalized body of a common thief; consequently, the “possibility of misreading the material body was ever-present” (Richards 113). Discussing the synecdochic function performed by the heroic body, Hill duly points out the similarities between the emphasis on the heroic body parts and the public display of mutilated, criminal body parts: “somehow the heroic feat itself is concentrated in the warrior appendage, much as the ‘professional’ thief’s or slanderer’s crimes are written onto him, through acts of judicial taking” (120). The fragmentation of the body thus betrays the latent anxiety over the legibility of the heroic body in Beowulf, an anxiety rooted in the possibility that the body-reading process can lead to conflicting and even troubling interpretations.
Beowulf further invites the question of inhumanity by choosing to strip to his bare body before fighting Grendel. His reasoning is that the “troublemaker in his heedless way disdains weapons” (se æglæca / for his won-hydum wæpna ne recceð; 433b-34) and he declares: “with my grasp I will grapple with the enemy and compete for survival, foe against foe” (ic mid grape sceal / fon wið feonde / ond ymb feorh sacan, / lað wið laþum; 438b-40a). The implication is that confronting an unarmed enemy with weapons and armor would be unfair, suggesting that Beowulf’s choice to discard weapons on his own terms is an expression of his virtuous, heroic nature. Yet by stripping bare like the “heedless” Grendel, Beowulf sheds the customs of civilization, making his body indistinguishable from Grendel’s criminal, monstrous body. His voluntary discarding of weapons marks him as a powerful yet uncivilized figure exactly like the enemy he faces, and it is only natural that his body must be read accordingly. If we discover that “the enemy of humankind” (and implicitly of God, as a descendant of Cain) and his opposer can both be reduced to similarl ypowerful, bare bodies, what would such an ambiguity signify for the heroic identity as depicted in the poem?
Beowulf’s body was already subject to dangerously variable readings in other instances than his battle with Grendel. The narrator reports that Beowulf was considered a weakling as a youth by his fellow countrymen, who did not deem him capable of heroic feats, thinking that “he was shiftless, a slack lordling” (þæt he sleac wære, / æðeling unfrom; 2187-88). This less-than-glorious youth spent in obscurity is supported by Unferth’s snide remarks about an incident in Beowulf’s boyhood when he arrives to the Danish court. Although Beowulf proclaims that “[he has] undertaken many accomplishments in [his] youth” (hæbbe ic mærða fela / ongunnen on geogoþe; 408-9), Unferth disputes his valor by mentioning the questionable swimming match with one Breca. Not only is the match itself problematic because it was held “for pride” (for wlence; 508) and “for foolish boasting” (for dol-gilpe; 509), it also ends with Beowulf’s defeat by Breca, since according to Unferth “he overmatched [Beowulf] at swimming, had greater strength” (he þe æt sunde oferflat, / hæfde mare mægen; 517-18). To be sure, heroes proving their worth in spite of a perceived physical or social inferiority is far from an alien concept in epic literature, yet the inclusion of Beowulf’s unimpressive past introduces certain ambiguities when put in conversation with the subtle connection between heroism and monstrosity pervading the text. Lapidge reads this event as a case of two characters describing an event from different perspectives, allowing the audience to understand why Breca claimed victory after listening to Beowulf’s version of the story (“Beowulf and Perception” 68-69). However, if the poet intentionally utilized the conflicting recollections of the event as a crucial narrative technique as Lapidge contends (“Beowulf and Perception” 74-76), such discrepancy also hints at the poet’s refusal of a single authoritative narrative promulgated by the hero. Although Beowulf retorts by arguing that he was performing greater deeds fighting sea-monsters at the time and ultimately proves his might by defeating Grendel, Unferth’s story suggests an opposing narrative directly challenging Beowulf’s heroic identity, a narrative that Beowulf would rather dismiss as an allegation made by a man “drunk with grog” (beore druncen; 531). Unferth’s narrative also comments on heroism itself and the foolishness of pursuing it, a point which will be addressed more fully in Beowulf’s battle against the dragon.
The discrepant readings of Beowulf are perhaps closely connected to the sharply contested understanding of his heroic identity in criticism. Although Beowulf is generally considered to be a heroic figure, not all critics agree with the concept of a homogeneous, uncomplicated heroism being at the center of the poem. What has been regarded as the vainglory of pagan heroism has been examined in light of the poem’s Christian poet and audience, usually leading to a negative interpretation of Germanic heroism in general or Beowulf’s heroic identity more specifically. Orchard argues that Beowulf, similar to classical heroes like Alexander the Great and Hercules, is criticized by the Christian Anglo-Saxon audience precisely for this reason, focusing on lexical similarities his description shares with that of Grendel and interpreting his lofgeornost trait as largely negative. Scott Gwara addresses Orchard’s negative reading of Beowulf’s heroism, yet argues that those traits exist only implicitly when he traces the critical history of heroism in Beowulf in his monograph Heroic Identity in the World of Beowulf. Turning to the comments on Beowulf’s heroic identity from figures such as Unferth and Wiglaf, he insists that “characters in Beowulf debate Beowulf’s motivation, which is only potentially proud” (12), ultimately finding Beowulf a heroic yet potentially dangerous and reckless warrior. Although Gwara deems Beowulf a heroic figure and sees the narrator as generally sympathetic towards him, his reading of heroism in Beowulf as a contested value that can easily turn into rashness and pride leaves Beowulf to be a complicated hero at best.
The fight with Grendel’s mother further problematizes Beowulf’s heroism by granting the Grendelkin a potentially civilized identity. After the bare-bodied combat, Beowulf’s body appears to regain its heroic features when he departs in search of Grendel’s mother, since he returns to a recognizably civilized appearance by donning armor and wielding weapons again. When he confronts Grendel’s mother in battle, his armor is what preserves his life when he struggles against her ferocity. However, it is important to note that Grendel’s mother’s actions firmly place the conflict between the Danes and the Grendelkin within the legal context of the feud system, unsettling the demarcation between her supposedly uncivilized family and Beowulf. Although the essence of Grendel’s monstrosity applies to his mother as well in that she retaliates against the lawful punishment inflicted on her son, her act of revenge is arguably righteous from her perspective, thus granting her a potentially civilized identity. Grendel’s mother is specifically said to be acting with vengeance on her son’s enemies in mind (1276-78), taking on the role of Grendel’s avenger. In O’Brien O’Keeffe’s words, “[i]n its deadly necessity vengeance is more comprehensible and more predictable than fate, for it is the expected and praiseworthy duty of both kin and thegn” (“Body and Law in Late Anglo-Saxon England” 106), and Grendel’s mother’s fierce retaliation against her son’s death certainly comments on the fatalistic nuance of the feud system. Although it was generally considered improper for women to actively start feud and engage in battle (Lockett 387-88 n55), Grendel’s mother is expected to act in retaliation for her son’s death as the sole survivor of her family and, possibly, the entire race. The chief motive of her vengeance may well be the fury of a bereft mother, yet the existence of the feud system inevitably blends the personal with the public. She could have been content with goading, a practice chiefly ascribed to women (Lockett 378), but the fact that she takes up the mantle of avenger herself implies that there is no other kin member to whom she can turn. Indeed, Jay Paul Gates finds in Beowulf a “collective ethnic accountability for violence” (8) comparable to that found in the ideology behind the St Brice’s Day massacre, considering the death of Grendel and his mother the “only case of complete and successful genocide narrated in the poem” (24). As the sole avenger of her son and her people, Grendel’s mother obtains a pass to participate in the explicitly masculine realm of the feud system.
Grendel’s mother’s participation in the feud hints at the understanding of, and even adherence to, the system on her behalf. Critics have offered various assessments of the degree of justification that could be allowed for her actions. According to Lockett, the killing of Æschere by Grendel’s mother is perfectly in accordance with the feud system, since for her the murder is a “legitimate requital of her own son’s death, for which reason she prominently displays the head at the entrance of her own home, on high ground at the edge of the mere” (372). Hill gives a rather puzzling comment regarding Grendel’s mother’s un-beheaded, intact body, positing that “[s]he is not dismembered in the way Grendel was, perhaps because she is not criminal” (130). These assessments all ascribe to Grendel’s mother a certain degree of understanding of the feud system and the broader social codes. William Ian Miller’s examination of the feud in Icelandic sagas in his book Bloodtaking and Peacemaking reveals that “[w]rongs done to someone, like gifts given to him, unilaterally make the recipient a debtor, someone who owes requital” (182), calling for retaliation that often resulted in back-and-forth exchanges of violence. The killing of Æschere and the display of his mutilated body is, at least from his killer’s view, justifiable in a legal context. If as Miller conjectures “what we would view as aggressive political and personal action can be legitimated when articulated in the idiom of vengeance taking” (205), Grendel’s mother’s act of vengeance serves to legitimize her violent actions against the Danes, paradoxically reasserting legal order as understood in human society. Furthermore, the fact that the Grendelkin’s dwelling is a fully furnished hall with treasures littered around suggests that they may be in fact civilized and presumably law-bound, directly contrasting the apparently lawless nature of Grendel implied earlier. The giant sword in the hall, “the ancient work of giants” (enta ær-geweorc; 1679), which Beowulf eventually uses to slay Grendel’s mother, points to civilized warfare, something Grendel apparently had no knowledge of. The Grendelkin in Beowulf’s battle with the mother is thus portrayed in a wholly different light compared to the previous battle with Grendel, upsetting the dichotomy of Beowulf’s heroic identity and the lawless, uncivilized monsters.
The justifiable nature of Grendel’s mother’s violence is possibly what makes her so troubling, almost as much as her identity as a female monster. According to Miller, women were generally out of the picture in the customs of legalized vengeance such as feuds because the “underlying idea was that people not socially privileged to bear arms were excused from having arms brought to bear on them” (207), but Grendel’s mother actively implicates herself in the feud system by attacking the Danes by herself. Even though the narrator hints at her relative weakness compared to her son, deeming her threat less by “just so much as the strength of females, the battle-intimidation of women, is in comparison to males” (efne swa micle swa bið mægþa cræft, / wig-gryre wífes bewæpned-men; 1283-84), Beowulf’s battle against her proves her to be a formidable foe. The sword Hrunting fails to pierce her skin (1522-28), and she almost succeeds in slaying Beowulf in her abode, had not God’s Providence, the armor, and the giant sword in the hall (1550-69) ultimately secured his victory. Even after she is defeated and killed, the way Beowulf treats, or refuses to deal with, her corpse implies a sort of unresolved anxiety on his part. Beowulf’s symbolic beheading of Grendel’s corpse as just reward for his crimes (1575-90) signals the hero’s complete triumph over the Grendelkin, yet the lack of such retribution for the mother’s corpse remains unaddressed; her body is not mentioned at all while Beowulf beheads Grendel and carries the head to the surface. The body of Grendel’s mother remains unaccounted for, perhaps because Beowulf saw no need to carry two monster-heads, but potentially because he did not want to be in further contact with her body at all. Beowulf’s second and final battle with the Grendelkin comments on the significance of the body as the object of maiming, killing, and vengeance in the feud system, through the troubling nature of Grendel’s mother’s attempt at vengeance and her own monstrous body.
Whereas the bodies of Grendel and his mother are thus legally inscribed within the feud system, the dragon’s decidedly inhuman body poses a problem for interpretive body-reading attempts, complicating its dynamic with Beowulf in the final battle. The dragon, while admittedly not as closely tied to juridical contexts as the Grendelkin, provides another angle of symbolic parallelism between the monstrous and the heroic. Compared to the Grendelkin’s more or less humanoid appearances, the dragon’s body is marked as inhuman by the lexica applied to it; the narrator describes a “bare, violent dragon, flies by night engulfed in flame” (nacod nið-draca, nihtes fleogeð / fyre befangen; 2273-74a), indicating its capacities for flight and fire-breathing even before Beowulf confronts its flames in battle. Howard Shilton, in his examination of Beowulf’s dragon, views it as a “natural creature with a flesh-and-blood solidity, and a bestial indifference to mankind” (73) like a natural disaster given life. Shilton considers the dragon’s evil nature distinct from the “immoral and spiritual evil of Grendel and his mother” (74) in that it is portrayed as an amoral creature with no regard for human law. Yet the dragon is arguably located in a civilized environment in that it rests in a hall guarding the treasure of a lost civilization, attacking only when someone steals from his hoard. There have been attempts to connect the dragon’s hoarding and a lord’s ungenerous, greedy hoarding condemned in Germanic societies, and although whether the dragon should be humanized to such a degree is questionable at best, they come from an understandable angle. The narrator’s information that “it was fifty feet long as laid out” (se wæs fiftiges fot-gemearces / lang on legere; 3042-43a) bares curious parallel to Beowulf’s reign of fifty years, just as the number of people Grendel seized and the number of armors Beowulf carried swimming matches up to thirty, a connection which Shilton acknowledges (70). Although Shilton dismisses the similarity as a case of setting up conventional figures to denote large numbers, the parallel between the aged human king and fire-breathing wyrm is, however trivial in nature, striking. Curiously enough, the dragon shares the title aglæca with Beowulf and the Grendelkin (aglæc-wif in Grendel’s mother’s case), denoting a certain degree of similarity between it and other more humanoid aglæcan. The dragon is, then, an enemy that is evidently inhuman in physicality yet arguably reaches out to the civil, humanized spaces of hall and identity, much more animal-like compared to the Grendelkin but still possessing a portion of human civilization as its realm.
In his final battle with the dragon, Beowulf’s body seemingly disappears, with his action becoming the object of conjectures in the absence of his body. Always described in vague, relative terms with a connection to the adversaries he faces, Beowulf’s body becomes less and less visible as he continues to fight monsters, being the most observable in the battle against Grendel and the least when he faces the dragon. In a sense, the aged Beowulf’s kingly actions become his corporeal existence. Indeed, Beowulf’s actions at this later stage of his life seem to be informed by his identity as a king. He initially assumes that he is responsible for the dragon’s attack against his people, revealing a sense of lordly responsibility and duty; the narrator reports that “[t]o the good man that was heartfelt distress, the severest mental affliction; the wise one imagined that he had bitterly enraged the ruler contrary to old law, the eternal Lord” (þæt ðam godan wæs / hreow on hreðre, hyge-sorga mæst; / wende se wisa þæt he wealdende / ofer ealde riht, ecean Dryhtne / bitre gebulge; 2327b-31a). Beowulf’s recollection of his past reign further shows that he views himself as a cyning first and foremost:
Ic ðas leode heold
fiftig wintra; næs se folc-cyning,
ymbe-sittendra ænig ðara
þe mec guð-winum gretan dorste,
egesan ðeon. Ic on earde bad
mæl-gesceafta, heold min tela,
ne sohte searo-niðas, ne me swor fela
aða on unriht. Ic ðæs ealles mæg
feorh-bennum seoc gefean habban;
forðam me witan ne ðearf waldend fira
morðor-bealo maga, þonne min sceaceð
lif of lice. (2732a–2743a)
I governed this nation fifty winters. There was not any king of neighboring peoples who dared confront me with war-friends, threaten alarm. I lived out at home my allotment of time, managed well what was mine, did not go looking for unwarranted aggression, did not swear multitudes of oaths in injustice. Sickened as I am by mortal wounds, I can take satisfaction in all that; on that account the ruler of men need not accuse me of the murder of kinsmen when the life departs from my body.
Gates identifies in this passage an “image of kingship that recognizes the necessity of violence but attempts to minimize it” (28), and such a concept of kingship would mark Beowulf as a benevolent and virtuous ruler. Although Beowulf has engaged in some warfare as a king, the notion is that he did not seek out “unwarranted aggression” without regard for his people; he understands how precariously the king’s role as a warmonger and peacemaker can alternate. Beowulf’s identity in the dragon battle is that of a king who genuinely cares for his subjects and knows to use violence moderately, at least if we are to accept his own description of his past actions.
However, conflicting textual evidence problematizes Beowulf’s ideal kingship. Even though Beowulf expresses grief at the dragon’s attack, he only acts once his hall is burned, directly putting him and his possessions in danger. Even more concerning is his rejection of the help from his retainers, since it implies that Beowulf is still acting by the heroic code of honor he adhered to when he singlehandedly defeated the Grendelkin. Referencing his youthful victory over Grendel, the king proclaims: “I would not bear a sword, a weapon against the reptile, if I knew how I could otherwise honorably grapple with the troublemaker, as I once did with Grendel”(Nolde ic sweord beran, / wæpen to wyrme, gif ic wiste hu / wið ðam aglæcean elles meahte / gylpe wiðgripan, swa ic gio wið Grendle dyde; 2518b-21). In Beowulf’s mind, Grendel and the dragon possess practically the same standing; powerful adversaries whom he must face bare bodied and preferably alone. It is shortly after this declaration that Beowulf orders the majority of his men to stay afar in safety, telling them: “It is not your undertaking, nor is it in the ability of anyone but me alone that he pit his strength against the troublemaker, do a manly deed” (Vis þæt eower sið, / ne gemet mannes nefne min anes, / þæt he wið aglæcean eofoðo dæle, / eorlscype efne; 2532b-35a). While it can be argued that fighting the dragon with a band of men weaker than Beowulf would have made little difference as a whole, Beowulf’s choice betrays an alarming disregard for not only his own life, but also the safety of his lordless subjects should he be killed in battle. Regarding the disastrous outcome of the battle depicted in the Battle of Maldon, O’Brien O’Keeffe remarks that “[t]here has always been a conflict between the individual heroic ethic (in the pursuit of valour and reputation whatever the cost) and the requirement for prudent aggression from an established army. The daring risk (for example, Beowulf’s beot to fight Grendel without a sword) brings praise, reputation and treasure when made good, but is a problematic subject for verse when the hero is less obviously successful” (“Values and Ethics in Heroic Literature” 116-17). The same can be said about Beowulf’s reckless action and eventual death; although heroic, it seems that he fails to recognize his responsibility as a ruler when he departs to confront the dragon, an act of heroic hubris that potentially costs him his life. Beowulf and his body again occupy an ambiguous space, not as a potentially criminal and monstrous warrior, but as a heroic king and not-so-kingly hero.
Beowulf’s ill-fated act of final heroism shows that his heroic identity may be less than compatible with his kingly identity. The dual identities now inscribed onto his body suggest that the unified existence of a heroic ruler or a kingly hero is difficult to maintain at best, and proves to be mere illusions at worst. In fact, some critics interpret Beowulf’s recklessness in the dragon fight as the evidence of his pride, vainglory, and egotism, the kind of flaws that are directly against Christian virtues, as traced by Gwara (10). This denotes that Beowulf is a figure who is mighty yet hopelessly imbued with pagan ideals of heroism, and thus an object of criticism from the Christian Anglo-Saxon audience of the poem. However, a complex figure such as Beowulf need not be limited to the extreme axes of either a sinful pagan or a virtuous hero with no spectrum in-between. Indeed, there exists a way to reconcile in Anglo-Saxon literary imagination, as seen by the Seafarer poet:
Forþon þæt bið eorla gehwam æftercweþendra
lof lifgendra lastworda betst,
þæt he gewyrce, ær he on weg scyle,
fremum on foldan wið feonda niþ,
deorum dædum deofle togeanes,
þæt hine ælda bearn æfter hergen,
ond his lof siþþan lifge mid englum
awa to ealdre, ecan lifes blæd,
dream mid dugeþum. (72-80)
And so for each man the best words left behind him
will be the praise of those speaking after him, of the living,
that, before he had to depart, he performed good deeds
on earth against the malice of enemies,
brave deeds against the devil,
so that the children of humans may praise them afterward,
and their praise may live among the angles
forever and ever, the glory of eternal life,
joy among the troops.[6]
Critics have interpreted these lines as an attempt to reconcile Christian and pagan heroic virtues; for example, O’Brien O’Keeffe observes that “[e]ven in poems whose focus is the world to come, rather than the present one, the concern for the afterlife is, nonetheless, sometimes phrased in the language of heroic convention” (“Values and Ethics in Heroic Literature” 103), and Orchard concludes that “[s]uch passages amply demonstrate the way in which Anglo-Saxon audiences were well-attuned to the dual sense of certain terms, and to the twin values implied” (55). The implication is, however, that Beowulf’s actions in the dragon fight can be considered heroic rather than sinful by the Anglo-Saxon audience of the poem, not that he is thoroughly flawless. Beowulf is neither a perfect paragon of ideal virtues nor an anti-hero intentionally designed to criticize pagan culture, but rather something of an in-between; he remains a hero (and something of a king), but the heroism he embodies is by nature ambiguous enough to be confused with criminality and problematic enough that it actively clashes with responsible kingship.
The body-reading process in Beowulf shows the eponymous hero to be a complex and often vexed figure whose ambiguity, strongly hinted from the beginning of his adventures, fully becomes his identity at last. Through the juridical contexts in which the body-reading takes place, Beowulf’s heroic body becomes fragmented and potentially criminal—or at the very least, problematically heroic. The poem fashions Beowulf and his monstrous adversaries into opponents sharing similar qualities ascribed to different categories. Perhaps the indication is that, as much as there was dread for a hero’s superhuman power, there was admiration for a marvelously powerful monster as well. Although Beowulf retains his heroic identity by opposing the enemies of God such as the Grendelkin and the supernatural force of violence like the dragon, performing “brave deeds against the evil” as the Seafarer puts it, his heroism is revealed to be dangerously similar to his monstrous opponents and ultimately undoes itself while in contact with royal duties. The ambiguity of Beowulf’s body discloses the poet’s nuanced understanding of heroism in Germanic society, always constructed in the action against the evil while maintaining intimate contact with it, and fatally self-destructive when placed in the context of kingship. Lacking the concrete core on which to base his material existence, Beowulf finally becomes a composite figure of deeds and duties, and the meanings derived from them inscribe themselves onto his ambiguous body to make it seem tangible. The legible bodies in Beowulf, especially that of the hero, reveals how bodies were interpreted as texts in the often shifting social and cultural contexts, and the poet, acknowledging that heroism in literary imagination also shifts in accordance with those contexts, invites us to witness it through Beowulf’s battles.
Works Cited
Beowulf in The Beowulf Manuscript: Complete Texts and The Fight at Finnsburg, edited and translated by R. D. Fulk, Harvard UP, 2010, pp. 85-296.
Gates, Jay Paul. “Discursive Murders: The St. Brice’s Day Massacre, Beowulf, and Morðor.” Medieval and Early Modern Murder Legal, Literary and Historical Contexts, edited by Larissa Tracy, Boydell & Brewer, 2018, pp. 47–76.
Gwara, Scott. Heroic Identity in the World of Beowulf. Brill, 2009.
Hill, John M., “The Sacrificial Synecdoche of Hands, Heads and Arms in Anglo-Saxon Heroic Story.” Naked Before God: Uncovering the Body in Anglo-Saxon England, edited by Benjamin C. Withers and Jonathan Wilcox, West Virginia UP, 2003, pp. 116–37.
Jurasinski, Stefan. The Old English Penitentials and Anglo-Saxon Law. Cambridge UP, 2015.
———, and Lisi Oliver. The Laws of Alfred: The Domboc and the Making of Anglo-Saxon Law. Cambridge UP, 2021.
Lambert, Tom. Law and Order in Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford UP, 2017.
Lapidge, Michael. “Beowulf and the Psychology of Terror.” Heroic Poetry in the Anglo-Saxon Period: Studies in the Honor of Jess J. Bessinger, edited by Helen Damico and John Leyerle, Medieval Institute Publications, 1993, pp. 373–402.
———. “Beowulf and Perception.” Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. 111, 2000, pp. 61–97.
Lockett, Leslie. “The Role of Grendel’s Arm in Feud, Law, and the Narrative Strategy of Beowulf.” Latin Learning and English Lore: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature for Michael Lapidge, Volume I, edited by Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe and Andy Orchard, U of Toronto P, 2005, pp. 368–88.
Miller, William Ian. Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland. U of Chicago P, 2014.
O’Brien O’Keeffe, Katherine. “Body and Law in Late Anglo-Saxon England.” Anglo-Saxon England, vol. 27, 1998, pp. 209–32.
———. “Values and Ethics in Heroic Literature.” The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, 2nd edition, edited by Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge, Cambridge UP, 2013, pp. 101–19.
O’Gorman, Daniel. “Mutilation and Spectacle in Anglo-Saxon Legislation.” Capital and Corporal Punishment in Anglo-Saxon England, edited by Jay Paul Gates and Nicole Marafioti, Boydell Press, 2014, pp. 149–64.
Orchard, Andy. Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf-Manuscript. U of Toronto P, 2003.
Rabin, Andrew. “Witnessing Kingship: Royal Power and the Legal Subject in the Old English Laws.” Kingship, Legislation and Power in Anglo-Saxon England, edited by Gale R. Owen-Crocker and Brian W. Schneider, Boydell & Brewer, 2013, pp. 219–36.
Reinhard, Ben. “Grendel and the Penitentials.” English Studies, vol. 94, 2013, pp. 371–85.
Richards, Mary P. “The Body as Text in Early Anglo-Saxon Law.” Withers and Wilcox 97–115.
The Seafarer in Old English Shorter Poems, Volume II. Wisdom and Lyrics, edited and translated by Robert E. Bjork, Harvard UP, 2013, pp. 28–37.
Shilton, Howard. “The Nature of Beowulf’s Dragon.” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, vol. 79, no. 3, 1997, pp. 67–77.
The Legible Body in Beowulf
| Abstract | Woo Ree Heor |
This article argues that the bodies in Beowulf, especially those of Beowulf and Grendel, become the site of legible meanings that simultaneously confirm and disturb their identities in the juridical context. The monstrous bodies of Grendel and his mother are criminalized in that they are seen as lawless, violent beings, yet their complex relationship with legal codes such as the feud system implies that they are not as inhuman as they seem. On the other hand, Beowulf’s heroic identity is constantly put to question as the bodily parallels with Grendel, the liminal space within the legal systems occupied by Grendel’s mother, and the ill-fated battle with the dragon problematize his body and actions. The vagueness of physical description also contributes to fashioning Beowulf’s body into a site of profound ambiguity, at once admirable and dangerous for the feats attached to it. Ultimately, this article demonstrates that Beowulf is neither a paragon of heroic ideals nor a pagan doomed to pre-Christian limitations, but rather a complex figure who embodies the nuanced relationship Germanic heroism maintains with monstrosity and kingship.
Key Words
body, heroism, monstrosity, legal system, feud
[1] The translation follows that of R. D. Fulk in his edition of Beowulf.
[2] Although it is beyond the scope of this article to catalog the vast numbers of studies on this topic, the insights provided by Scott Gwara and Andy Orchard have been crucial for my arguments. Gwara addresses the readings suggesting Beowulf and Grendel’s similarities in relation to his discussion of Beowulf’s contested heroism (17-18). Orchard’s discussion of the heroism in Beowulf supports his interpretation of the titular hero as a problematic figure who, despite his prowess, possesses glaring personal flaws.
[3] Works on legal systems in Anglo-Saxon society has also been illuminating in this regard, although my focus lies chiefly on how the legal interacts with the literary in the fantastical (yet socially grounded) contexts of Beowulf. Monographs on Anglo-Saxon law by scholars such as Tom Lambert, Stefan Jurasinski, and Lisi Oliver have been especially helpful in establishing the basis of sociopolitical environments surrounding the poem. This essay, while acknowledging such frameworks, aims to place juridical context in conversation with the cultural legibility of heroic and monstrous bodies.
[4] While John M. Hill also notices the similarity of the public display of Grendel’s arm to the punishment to thieves in late Anglo-Saxon law, in which the hands were cut off and displayed, he points out that Grendel destroys the interior of Heorot “as though it were a constructed, bound-together body” (124), pursuing the theme of mutilation and destruction of the body even further.
[5] Since mund conveys the meaning of a king’s protection of his subjects guaranteed by his hand, Beowulf’s hand is also closely connected to his later identity as a king.
[6] The translation follows that of Robert E. Bjork.
Journal of English Studies in Korea
49 (2025): 132-31
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