Is Beowulf Really a Hero?

I wasn’t able to do a rumination for week one when we read Beowulf and there was something that I defiantly wanted to talk about, is Beowulf really a hero?  He does all the heroic things, slays the monster, finds the treasure hoard, he even takes down a dragon.  However his actions are only one half of the equation.  To some degree the thing that matters the most is his intentions.  It is my belief that Beowulf is no hero until he reaches the final confrontation with the Dragon.

We begin with Beowulf’s reasons for traveling from his home to this land.  Is he coming to free them of Grendel? No.  Is coming to forge an alliance? No.  He is there for one reason and one reason only, to feed his ego.  Grendel is supposedly unbeatable, an indestructible, un-Godly force that no man can possibly defeat.  For Beowulf this sounds like a challenge.  He travels across the sea for personal glory not to defend those in need.  This sort of rampant hubris is again seen in his fight with Grendel, and this time it saves his life.  Beowulf believes he can defeat the beast with his bare hands, and he is lucky he decided this.  Due to Grendel’s protection from all weapons, any attempt to strike him with a sword would have been wasted and might have cost Beowulf his life.

Not long after Grendel’s defeat, Grendel’s mother comes and takes away Beowulf’s trophy (Grendel’s arm) and kills one of Hrothgar’s most trusted warriors.  In response Beowulf proclaims that he will kill Grendel’s mother.  However we must once again ask ourselves, why is he undertaking the job?  Does he feel his job is not done and that the people are still in danger? Does he feel that an abomination like Grendel’s mother cannot be allowed to continue to exist?  Possibly, but I feel the more likely reason is wounded pride.  Grendel’s mother came in and defied Beowulf, stealing his trophy and killing one of the men.  His response is a thoroughly self-centered one: Kill the beast that embarrassed me.

So when does the famous hero Beowulf finally become a hero?  In some ways he does in the last fight with the dragon.  Now much older, King Beowulf faces his greatest foe yet.  His decision to go after the dragon is a bit more in line with a hero.  Partially he wants to go up against something that no man can possibly defeat one more time and prove that he is the greatest and the strongest.  Yet on the other hand he has a sense of duty for the first time.  If the dragon is not defeated he will wind up killing everyone, either by direct means or by burning the fields and destroying the food supply.  Beowulf walks into the fight knowing he will most likely die and yet does it anyway, and that is admirable.

Without the final part, which some have argued may not have been part of the original text, Beowulf is no hero.  Instead he is a glory hungry man with an ego that has reached such a momentous size that it is becoming self-aware.  His only saving grace is the sacrifice against the dragon, without which Beowulf is just another empty character.

Bed Bug: The Sexual Imagery of a Flea

             I can’t help but read John Donne’s poem “The Flea” without chuckling to my self.  We’ve all seen it; half of us have probably done it.  It’s that same old story, boy meets girl, boy decides girl is Ms. Right or Ms. Right-now, boy spends his paycheck trying to convince girl to go home with him.  It’s a modern day classic and it gets old fast.  But when you read about a renowned poet doing what is ostensibly the same thing, it puts a new light on the story.

             The speaker spends the first two stanza’s attempting to convince his beloved to sleep with him.  He seems to know he is fighting a losing battle and so, grasping at straws, he reaches for the closest thing to them, a flea.  “Mark but this flea, and mark in this./How little which thou deniest me is;”  Donne is trying to tell his beloved that what they want to do is no big deal, it is in fact already happening on a much smaller scale within the body of the flea.  “Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee,/And in this flea out two bloods mingled be;”  The lovers blood has become one in the container of the flea, much as the speaker wishes the lovers themselves to become one within the confines of the bedroom.  There is no “sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead,” in what is happening in the flea, so how can their premarital sex be anything approaching a sin?

            The beloved moves to kill the pest (the flea, not the speaker) and the speaker attempts to forestall her by claiming that if she were to kill the flea she would be committing three sin, destroying him, her, and the life of the flea.  The speaker claims that the union of their blood is more sacred than marriage.  “Where we almost, nay more than married are./This flea is you and I, and this/our marriage bed and marriage temple is;”  This is the most interesting sequence in the poem as it takes two ideas which at first seem entirely opposite and puts them together to create a beautiful union.  The ideas of premarital sex and a marriage in the eye of God and all that these two consider holy seem to contradict themselves.  However Donne transforms them into one and the same.  With out using any of the overly flowery language of his predecessors, Donne makes one of the most beautiful statements about love.  And he does so inside of a FLEA.  That is impressive.

            In the end the beloved does kill the flea and so the speaker, like any guy who is sharp on his toes, switches gears.  From claiming how sacred the flea is he suddenly views her killing it to be sinless and by relation, their having sex would be entirely sinless.  Donne’s goal is to satiate his own lust and he uses his skill as a wordsmith in an effort to do so.  The fact that such beautiful language is used to hide a thoroughly base and human desire is fascinating to me as it simultaneously makes Donne more interesting and more relatable

           

Hell Hath No Fury...

           I had a hard time coming up with a good album to use for this week’s Wildcard.  Most of the ones I was encountering were studies in self-pity and/or idolization of the loved one.  I know I didn’t HAVE to like what I was writing on, but that is no fun.  Then it occurred to me that one of the albums in my eclectic collection was fit the bill in a slightly different way.  Shallow Life, the fifth studio album from the Italian metal band Lacuna Coil has a definite lyrical sequence concerning love, or rather a lack there of.

            Though the band says that the album is about the shallow aspects of modern society and how we have to be wary of them, but not afraid of them (the lead singer talks about how she knows she doesn’t need to buy anymore cloths, but every once in a while shopping with her friends is just fun), something else bleeds through in the songs.  I would be willing to be that a little research might reveal a nasty break up between lead singer Cristina Scabbia and a boyfriend (who is clearly insane, the woman is gorgeous and has some set of pipes).  Every song seems like a letter to this former significant other.

            The overall tone reflects someone who is moving on from a broken heart.  She seems to be living by the belief that if she acts happy on the outside, she will begin to feel happy on the inside.  The loss can be felt in every song as you progress through the album.

            So far two singles have been released “I Like It” and “Spellbound”.  “Spellbound” feels like it would have taken place directly after the split where as “I Like It” feels more like a song that is meant to make her look stronger than she is feeling.  Lines such as “I am getting ready to move on/But you don’t like it/You can kiss your fairy tale away/I like it, like it/How do you like it?” as well as the first verse of “Spellbound” have the air of someone still feeling the keen sting of love.

            There is one song (featured on the deluxe copy of the album) that I find pretty interesting, “The Last Goodbye”.  It feels like a catharsis, a point at which the two former lovers have come to a point where they no longer mourn their relationship, but are instead ready to truly move on.  It is the one point where the tone of the album really shifts.

(Above: a fan made video for The Last Goodbye)

            Two interesting notes.  One, shortly before this CD came out, Scabbia did a song with a band called Apocalyptica called “S.O.S. (Anything But Love)”.  It is a heart-wrenching story of an emotionally and physically battered girlfriend.  This theme of heartbreak seems to start here and filtered into Lacuna Coil’s album.  (I can’t seem to find the video right now so I will past in the lyrics so you guys have some idea, honestly I think she deserves a Grammy just for rhyming "nothing" with "mind-f*cking", but maybe that’s just me).

Bound to your side and trapped in silence
Just a possession
Is this sex or only violence
That feeds your obsession

You send me to a broken state
Where I can take the pain just long enough
Then I am numb -t hen I just disappear

So go on fight me
Go on and scare me to death
Tell me I asked for it
Tell me I'll never forget
You could give me anything but love
Anything but love

Does it feel good to deny
Hurt me with nothing
Some sort of sick satisfaction
You Get from mindfucking

Stripped down to my naked core
The darkest corners of my mind are yours
That's where you live
That's where you breathe

So go on fight me
Go on and scare me to death
Dare me to leave you
Tell me I'll never forget
You could give me anything but love
Anything but love

Without any faith
Without any light
Condemn me to live
Condemn me to lie
Inside I am dead

So go on fight me
Go on and scare me to death
I'll be the victim
You'll be the voice in my head
You could give me anything but love
Anything but love

Secondly, this albums sound is quite drastically different from the bands previous ones.  It has more of a mainstream, even (dare I say it) pop-rock vibe, where as their past work was darker and more concerned with matters of loss of faith, with songs like “Heaven’s a Lie” and “Our Truth”.  I feel this is also representative of Scabbia’s emotions during the time they where writing the lyrics.

Or I could be completely off the mark and it could have nothing to do with a break-up, but it feels like it to me.