Xev
01-19-04, 07:20 PM
This was origionally an essay for a lit class. The more I read the epics of the Vikings and Germanic tribes the more I realize how much of "modern" philosophy, in particular existentialism, is a process of re-discovering the ideas of our ancestors.
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Man finds himself in a strange state. The evolutionary process of a wholly natural world has spawned a creature that rebels against the idea of a wholly natural world. There can be no comprehension without seperating oneself from the comprehended, and seperation from the world brings anguish. The struggle to find meaning and reconciliation with this uncomprehending universe forms the drama of philosophy.
Camus lived in an age in which Europe's old values had started to obviously crumble in the light of rationalism and science. Christianity, which had once offered hope of another life and more importantly of purpose in this life, loses its potency when confronted by the naturalistic truths of science and the rationalistic truths of the mind. Its immediate successors – communism, fascism and liberalism – offered purpose and value, but quickly degenerated in promise or were destroyed in war. Science itself offered truth, method and veracity, but a methodology that reveals the truth does not necessarily help us understand the truth.
In an attempt to find a solution to the problem of alienation, Albert Camus outlines and explores the character of a man who accepts a universe that has lost its myth of transcendance. Camus called such a man "Absurd" - in that knowing that nothing in the universe has inherent meaning or value, he lives and struggles anyway. Beowulf is such a man.
While our narrator often inserts statements of a belief in Christian redemption and transcendance, they are few and token. The overall tone of the poem is one of an uncertain world in which nature and the ever-present Weird. It is interesting to note that while Beowulf several times grants to God the glory of his victory (which is often seen as a later interpolation by scholars), God does not intervene when Grendel is ravaging Herorot. Nor does God interevene when Beowulf must fight the Dragon that finally kills him.
It has been remarked that Beowulf begins and ends with funerals. This is a truism – Beowulf contains three vividly described funerals and numerous deaths. Death in Beowulf is not a fact that needs to be accepted, but a fact that automatically is accepted. The prospect of life beyond is considered, but is by no means a certainty for our warriors. The poem opens describing the funeral of Scyld Shefing, founder of the Danish royal house, the Scyldings for whom Beowulf slays the two Grendals. Scyld is given a traditional Viking burial, placed in a boat laden with treasure and pushed off to sea.
“High over head they hoisted and fixed
a gold signum; gave him to the flood
let the seas take him, with sour hearts
and mourning mood. Men under heaven's
shifting skies, though skilled in counsel,
cannot say surely who unshipped that cargo.”
Religious purpose and hope of redemption is clearly not a belief held strongly by our Geatish warriors. Beowulf aknowledges God in passing and towards the end of his life spends some time brooding over whether he has offended God but these thoughts are aknowledged as ones he is unaccustomed to. Even dying, Beowulf asks for the proof of his earthly accomplishments and bids Wiglaf build him a tomb by which he can be remembered.
Beowulf has accepted his death, and hopes only to live well and be remembered for his daring and glory. He does not reject the otherworldly, but he does not base his hope on it. His love of the world is rooted in this world, in the joy of his fights, in his honour and his lust for glory. He loves gold and adventure, for these things he loves life.
Camus summarizes the Absurd man thus:
“What, in fact, is the absurd man? He who, without negating it, does nothing for the eternal. Not that nostalgia is foreign to him. But he prefers his courage and his reasoning. The first teaches him to live without appeal and to get along with what he has; the second informs him of his limits. Assured of his temporally limited freedom, of his revolt devoid of future, and of his moral consciousness, he lives out his adventure within the span of his lifetime.”
Beowulf is pre-Christian, a testament to an age and culture in which honour and fighting prowess were the dominant virtues and in which Odin went into battle knowing that he would be the first to be devoured by the Fenris wolf. The outlook is inherently Absurd – the Gods will die. Even the Gods will die and yet life is celebrated. A man and a woman live hidden in the World-Tree and after Ragnarok will emerge and repopulate the world. Life goes on, thrusting as a tree does towards the sun in spite of the death of its leaves.
In fighting the dragon ravaging his lands, Beowulf is killed. As he dies, he stares content over the gold and glory that he has wrought with his own hands. This is true resignation to a universe that, no longer alien, has opened the treasures of the earth to our hero. The weird, as he says without a trace of resentment, has lured him to his end.
--
Man finds himself in a strange state. The evolutionary process of a wholly natural world has spawned a creature that rebels against the idea of a wholly natural world. There can be no comprehension without seperating oneself from the comprehended, and seperation from the world brings anguish. The struggle to find meaning and reconciliation with this uncomprehending universe forms the drama of philosophy.
Camus lived in an age in which Europe's old values had started to obviously crumble in the light of rationalism and science. Christianity, which had once offered hope of another life and more importantly of purpose in this life, loses its potency when confronted by the naturalistic truths of science and the rationalistic truths of the mind. Its immediate successors – communism, fascism and liberalism – offered purpose and value, but quickly degenerated in promise or were destroyed in war. Science itself offered truth, method and veracity, but a methodology that reveals the truth does not necessarily help us understand the truth.
In an attempt to find a solution to the problem of alienation, Albert Camus outlines and explores the character of a man who accepts a universe that has lost its myth of transcendance. Camus called such a man "Absurd" - in that knowing that nothing in the universe has inherent meaning or value, he lives and struggles anyway. Beowulf is such a man.
While our narrator often inserts statements of a belief in Christian redemption and transcendance, they are few and token. The overall tone of the poem is one of an uncertain world in which nature and the ever-present Weird. It is interesting to note that while Beowulf several times grants to God the glory of his victory (which is often seen as a later interpolation by scholars), God does not intervene when Grendel is ravaging Herorot. Nor does God interevene when Beowulf must fight the Dragon that finally kills him.
It has been remarked that Beowulf begins and ends with funerals. This is a truism – Beowulf contains three vividly described funerals and numerous deaths. Death in Beowulf is not a fact that needs to be accepted, but a fact that automatically is accepted. The prospect of life beyond is considered, but is by no means a certainty for our warriors. The poem opens describing the funeral of Scyld Shefing, founder of the Danish royal house, the Scyldings for whom Beowulf slays the two Grendals. Scyld is given a traditional Viking burial, placed in a boat laden with treasure and pushed off to sea.
“High over head they hoisted and fixed
a gold signum; gave him to the flood
let the seas take him, with sour hearts
and mourning mood. Men under heaven's
shifting skies, though skilled in counsel,
cannot say surely who unshipped that cargo.”
Religious purpose and hope of redemption is clearly not a belief held strongly by our Geatish warriors. Beowulf aknowledges God in passing and towards the end of his life spends some time brooding over whether he has offended God but these thoughts are aknowledged as ones he is unaccustomed to. Even dying, Beowulf asks for the proof of his earthly accomplishments and bids Wiglaf build him a tomb by which he can be remembered.
Beowulf has accepted his death, and hopes only to live well and be remembered for his daring and glory. He does not reject the otherworldly, but he does not base his hope on it. His love of the world is rooted in this world, in the joy of his fights, in his honour and his lust for glory. He loves gold and adventure, for these things he loves life.
Camus summarizes the Absurd man thus:
“What, in fact, is the absurd man? He who, without negating it, does nothing for the eternal. Not that nostalgia is foreign to him. But he prefers his courage and his reasoning. The first teaches him to live without appeal and to get along with what he has; the second informs him of his limits. Assured of his temporally limited freedom, of his revolt devoid of future, and of his moral consciousness, he lives out his adventure within the span of his lifetime.”
Beowulf is pre-Christian, a testament to an age and culture in which honour and fighting prowess were the dominant virtues and in which Odin went into battle knowing that he would be the first to be devoured by the Fenris wolf. The outlook is inherently Absurd – the Gods will die. Even the Gods will die and yet life is celebrated. A man and a woman live hidden in the World-Tree and after Ragnarok will emerge and repopulate the world. Life goes on, thrusting as a tree does towards the sun in spite of the death of its leaves.
In fighting the dragon ravaging his lands, Beowulf is killed. As he dies, he stares content over the gold and glory that he has wrought with his own hands. This is true resignation to a universe that, no longer alien, has opened the treasures of the earth to our hero. The weird, as he says without a trace of resentment, has lured him to his end.