Beowulf

Seamus Heaney
Albert W. Healey
Kevin Crossley Holland (kids)
Dorothy Hosford

I chose the, "Grendel's Head," chapter to examine because I thought it sounded the most funny. This excerpt is about when Beowulf has to save everyone from a monster named Grendel. All of the strongest warriors have already lost against this monster, but Beowulf kills him and then he even goes on to cut off the corpse's head!
My favorite excerpt is the one by Albert W. Healey. His rhyme scheme seems a little random, but, it's most definitely victorious and inserts some comedy and surprise in at the end,

"His body now bounded
away, when he suffered that blow after death--
a hard sword-stroke!-- and then Beowulf cut the fiend's
...head off! ---"

The words, "bounded," and, "blow," and, "hard sword-stroke," give off a victorious rhyme scheme, while the last two words of the excerpt are indented and left alone, punctuated by the three lines at the end, as if to add an element of surprise. I felt like this rendition of the situation was the one I could relate to the most reaction-wise, because the other authors' excerpts don't seem the least disturbed by this barbaric feat, while this one is animated by exclamation points and spaces at all the right positions. I love the pause right before the words, "head off," as if it's so surprising. It may not have been intended to be comical, but I found Albert's text quite funny.

One thing that I found in all of the texts was that it was less about the heroism of saving lives, and more about the triumph of killing the monsters. The stories all seem to celebrate the barbarism and the killing that is going on rather than what Beowulf is protecting.

Beowulf represents the, "classic hero story," because he has superhuman qualities and tools, he is undefeatable, and he is continuously worshipped for his victories. Like other superheroes, Beowulf is deeply relied upon because he is the only one who is able to defeat the monsters.