This Article Really Blew

The argument that stood out to me was that Beowulf should not be considered the man and the poem together. The argument by Kathryn Hume saying that Beowulf's inner thoughts aren't displayed to the reader except through some very brief and few private moments struck a cord with me. I never really connected with Beowulf the poem or the man because I like being just that, connected. Even if I wanted to read a story about dragons and monsters and defeating armies and whatever you can put into an epic poem, I still feel that need to be connected to the main character, to read at least a little tidbit of what he's thinking, not just "and then he did this, then he picked this up and did this, and how brave he was".

The opposing argument that Beowulf is in fact what makes the poem, what makes its theme, well, I just don't agree with that. If there is any theme or point to Beowulf in my mind, its all about preserving culture and entertainment, and we could get into that whole debate about Paganism and about Christianity and who wrote it and all that stuff, but forget it. I feel that the main character has a very important role in the theme of the poem, and that contributed a great deal to my dislike of this work. Also, the idea of some brute who due to the writing of the poem has no inner thoughts and cannot even be considered a man of action through the fact that he is not portrayed in any specific light other than the one of "hero" is representative of the entire poem is kind of unsettling with me in a literary sense.

Wil Wheaton.