Let's begin by talking about your thoughts and ideas on Beowulf. Recuerden que no quiero que lo copien de algun lado de internet... quiero sus comentarios, no los de otras personas que ya lo han hecho.
What's going on with "old English"?
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Talking about the context of Beowulf, it is very interesting how a pagan story (because of the characters)became a Christian one, actually was told as a Christian one.
ReplyDeleteIs interesting how Beowulf did not influence the most important writers like: Shakespeare, Chaucer and others (they did not know the poem or they knew a little bit of it)
A important masterpiece of the classical literature.
Old english:
ReplyDeleteAmazing, old english has a big influence of germanic,also french and latin. Old english took or addopted some words from other languages in order to have an extense vocabulary.
There are some clearly differences between the old and modern english, kenning, each line in old english have 2 halves and so on.
According what I have understood from the last material, Beowulf was a poem which was written in “Anglo-Saxon”, now we know that “Anglo-Saxon” is also known as Old English. That means that the poem was written in Old English. I imagine that it is an excellent poem to read because from that context we can compare the Old English with the one that we speak nowadays.
ReplyDeleteWhat I found very interesting about this poem "Beowulf" was that the characters of this story all of them were pagans, but was written by a christian person.... Furthermore, it is interesting to see how this poem became the first important work in the english literature, when it was practically forgotten.
ReplyDeleteThe poem relate the deeds or adventures of Beowulf a great hero that later became a King.
ReplyDeleteThe poem let you know the evolution of Beowulf, at the beginning show a brave warrior but the time pass and Beowulf became a king with more matures thoughts and taking care of his people.
One thing that I particularly like about this poem is the personality of Beowulf. He was a warrior quite brave and a down to earth one.... he was gaining maturity through the time and always acted for the well being of others and not only for him...
ReplyDeleteBeowulf reprents the most important work talking about English literature and also the oldest one. Even though it has been translated into modern english, it has changed a lot.
ReplyDeleteWhat amazing!. According to the text Grendel is descendent from Cain.
ReplyDeletequite interesting, in beowulf the poet mixed some cristian topics with some pagan ones, at that time this should be very controvercial. But I think that this is one of the reasons that make beowulf so important.
ReplyDeleteI prefer watct the movie instead of reading the poem; but this is an amazing plot. I like the way that the poem illustrates the perfect leaders around those times: full of courage, a complete loyalty in their beliefs and eneough strong to defend their lands.
ReplyDeleteTeacher, thanks for the video :-D
ReplyDeleteWow! I really liked the poem. The courage of Beowulf was amazing.
ReplyDeleteBeowulf was a noble hero in all the poem. His death was very sad, but he died like the biggest hero.
One thing that I like about Beowulf is the way it represents human history throughout the ages. The eternal strugle of good versus evil, something we see everyday. Doesnt matter if we won the battle against evil today, there is always more evil to fight.
ReplyDeleteWell, I want to say that it really surprised when I read about J.R.R Tolkien's work being influenced by Beowulf. Since I have read "The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, the fellowship of the Ring, and The Two Towers (Unfortunately I haven't read The Return of the king, the fifth book)I knew there were some things in those books based on English Mythology(most of them, I think / I'm not sure), but by reading The context of Beowulf I realize now that there are some features, in both the story and the characters, that had been soaked with the style and ideas from beowulf. As an example, the never ending wars between Melkor (The embodiment of all evil) and The Valar (The creators and guardians of the world) from the Silmarillion. And from the Hobbit: the battle of Bard the bowman (an archer) against Smaug(The dragon) to protect Lake-Town's from being completely destroyed.
ReplyDeleteNow talking about Beowulf and it's recent film adaptation (2007). I think, perhaps you will agree with me, that film companies and their lust for money rip apart complete literary works. Such is the case of Beowulf, and I don't denie that the computer animated movie had nice special effects and everything, but the plot was changed in a way that Beowulf, the character, appeared to be a liar and a fake. I did't know the original story was so different from the movie before reading part of the summary.
ReplyDeleteAn example of these "changes", of course talking about the movie:
1. Grendel was the son of Rothgar and the swamp monster.
2. After killing Grendel...
Beowulf goes to kill the swamp mosnter (grendel's mother), whom in the movie can take the form of a beautiful woman, but instead of killing her, they had sexual intercourse and she remains alive...
3. Beowulf returns "victorious" to Heorot, with the lie that he killed the monster... Rothgar then suicides, making Beowulf the King of "Denmark" before dying[I don't remember the name of the place in the movie]
4.Then, many years later, a mad dragon who can take the shape of a man appears and attacks everyone in "Denmark."
Guess who's that dragon? Yes, Beowulf and the swamp monster's son. In the end, Beowulf dies kiling the dragon. But the swamp monster never dies!!!
And obviously, a movie is to entertain. But, WOW, they killed the true story. In any case, just by reading the summary, you can find that there are several discrepancies between the movie and the summary.
I think old english was really complicated. What it calls my interest is the alliterative rule, and the Kennings.
ReplyDeleteIt must have been difficult for the scops and poets to memorize all those tales, songs and poems.
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ReplyDeleteGerson, thanks for telling us a little bit about the movie. I have never watched the movie, but I have read the summaries of the poem. There is a big different. I think that in the movie some values are missing. They changed almost everything because it seems like they took into account just some ideas from the real poem.
ReplyDeleteas I know Beowulf is a poem written in anglo-saxon language or old english that represent one of the most old british literature, that also help inspired some other writters, not in that time, but some years later.
ReplyDeleteI think Beowulf represents the leader that all nations would like to have. He was brave and loyal (Two of the most important characteristics of a good leader.)
ReplyDeleteWell in my opinion when i read in the program that we analize Beowulf I think that it will be a litle bouring because i watched the movie and i didn't like to much but maybe like a partner said that i have to read the original poem to feel what is the real sense of the poem. And with respect of the old english i think that It had to desappear due to all the influece of the emigrates to the countries that spoke the English because it was acquire new words and stress.
ReplyDeleteBeawulf is the perfect example of an epic character, even when I haven't heared about it before the poem caught my attention since I am an epic stories fan.
ReplyDeleteI love the heroe speech, how he encouraged his men, and also the loyalty that he demonstrated to Hrothgar, the king. I think that this kind of brave man were a good influence to the gerantion who lived at that time
To answer What's going on with "old English"? I have to say that the Old language hasn't dissapear at old, it just has change. Changes are necessary, our languages change according to new speakers needs. For example, Nowadays, American English has created words like iPod, and we understand its meaning because this device now is part of our daily life. In my opinion English evolve with the world.
ReplyDeleteI think beowulf is represented as the perfect hero: brave, loyal, strong and someone who dies for the kingdom.
ReplyDeleteI´ve never watched the movie but acording to Gerson´s words the movie is not as good as the poem.
What I didn´t like about the poem is that when Beowulf died all the kingdom felt unprtected and they thougth tha the end of the kingdom would came with the dead of Beoufulf even when they had good wariors like Wiglaf. What I mean is that all people were too glinged to Beowulf protection.
ReplyDeleteThe plot of the poem refers to the Scandinavian culture but the combination of a pagan story with a Christian narrator is fairly unusual.
ReplyDeleteBeowulf is a perfect hero. The poem tells of his heroism based on two sentences of youth and age and also talks about the increasingly difficult conflict with Grendel, Grendel's mother and the dragon. Although we view these three encounters as expressions of the heroic code, perhaps there is a clearer division between the young Beowulf's heroism as a warrior without restrictions and their heroism mature as a reliable king.
I think that people in the past used songs in order to remember important parts of history, because not all people was able to write them down in a correct way. Old English in its form and structure was quite complicated.
ReplyDeleteI watched the movie and I thought the story was going to be the same. But since I started reading I realized that they're completly different. Actually, I didn't pay so much attention to all the details as Gerson did.
ReplyDeleteFor me beowulf is one of the best stories of that time and I like the code of the warrior that the story presents be brave, loyal and never show fear. Another aspect which took my attention was the impotance of the paternal legacy of the Norsemen for them the reputation of the father inherited of the son; I think that was very important and required a lot of compromise. Hail Beowulf!
ReplyDeleteThe Anglo-Saxon and the Anglo-norman had a great influence in Britain thanks to them born the Old English,which was an amalgam because had influences and words from Celtic, French ,German, so it was kind of complicated to commnicate in England in that time. The Britain literature had a strong influence from the Scandinavian culture and we can see that in Beouwulf.
ReplyDeleteHey I´m glad that the original version of Beowulf ( the Scandinavian one) is completely different From the movie because the movie discredit the Norsmen´s culture and Beowulf is shown like a fake; in other words, he is not worty value that was essential for the Vikings.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Nelson's opinion when he says that britain literature has a big influence from the Scandinavian, but what about the case of Beowulf for example, it has been translated into many languages, that can tell us about the diversity that exist even in the way to perceive or understand the origial history. I guess that every single language in which has been translated it has change at least a little bit, maybe just modifying some aspects or changing completly.
ReplyDeleteHey but, Beowulf's story is not really different to the others. As in all stories, the hero is called to protect the people, to figth with monsters and be the one who has to change the things. It is true that he is strong and brave and all the qualities that my classmates have mentioned before, but for me that's it.
ReplyDeleteWhat´s going on with old English?, well, definitely English has evolved through time, evolving involves changes. Some words from Old English might still be used in Nowadays English, however, not with the same meaning. There is a difference in languages through time and English is not an exception, recent expressions of English can be compared for example. People in the USA, who are 60 years old or more will use the expression, I´m in a hip of trouble, while in nowadays English we usually hear the expression I’m screwed, meaning I have serious problems.
ReplyDeleteIt is a proof that if in a term of 60 years , expressions were different, then what can we infer from Old English. For me, English is still on its way for evolution and it will be constant according to the circumstances of life. Remember that English was influenced by other languages like French, for me, it would not be a surprise if English has a forced evolution in the Salad Bowl, I mean, the USA, that is hosting lots of immigrants at the moment from different countries and therefore, people who speak different languages. A proof for that is, Chinese people, they are using different words for English, they will say pi pi – nine, instead of fifty nine, this is usually heard in New Jersey.
Old English was a term used to refer to the first form of English Language known through history. But we are not conscious that as far as English is changing constantly and that Nowadays English will soon become Old English for the next generations, since they will have different expressions and what I am sure of, a different writing style that will be based on the spelling that cell phones and electronic communication have compelled.
At the end, Old English never disappears, there is a nowadays English and there is an Old English but Old is a relative term.
I already change my name in order to avoid identity problems.
ReplyDeleteNow I am Daniel O. Cedillos Cano, before I was Daniel X
ReplyDeletewhat interesting is to know people think in the past but is more really nice is that they describe what was happening around. with a little more fiction but you can get the gist.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry what I meant in the first sentence, with beowulf we can know how they thought in the past
ReplyDelete