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OfflineHarmonic_Order
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Registered: 02/13/06
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Anybody ever read "Beowulf"?
    #5673860 - 05/25/06 05:20 PM (17 years, 8 months ago)

If you never picked up this gem of Old English Literature, you might want to read this synopsis.
(Ahh, nothing like a good old glass of vino)
The story goes like this: a powerful Danish warlord named Hrothgar has a pretty nice, not exactly a palace, but more like a decked-out fort or castle with a banquet hall for getting drunk in.
He has a pretty wife and loads of droogs to hang out with, and everybody loves Hrothgar cos he gives them booze, a place to party, and jewelry, like rings and torques.
But nearby lives a sort of mass-murderer type named Grendel, not really a man, more like a monster.
Charles Manson for the first century B.C.E., you might say.
This Grendel has a problem with the music and the dancing and the booze, owing to his horrible appearance and low place in the world (getting born as like Satan-spawn doesn't do much for his disposition).
So eventually Grendel gets tired of the noise and everybody having a happy time except him, so he goes into the banquet hall at night and rips the guts out of Hrothgar's favorite guy and eats him.
And he just keeps doing that periodically, killing off the next-most popular guy each time, until everybody stops having a good time and just starts feeling sad all the time.
Eventually somebody related to Hrothgar, a real hero type named Beowulf, shows up on the beach and hears the bad news.
After out-bragging the local Ultimate Fighter, Beowulf hides in the banquet hall at night, waiting for Grendel.
When Grendel shows up, Beowulf beats living Hell out of him and eventually tears off the dude's arm.
Grendel goes home to his Mom and bleeds to death.

I mention this because in these times of iniquity and uneven distribution of wealth, Grendel makes a good metaphor for class jealousy and Angry Young Men.
Lotta guys like violence and gruesome imagery and hatefulness and fucking up other people's good time a lot better than they like beauty and pleasant music.
For example, the very existence of Ogrish and Timekill Does point out the Grendelness in society today.
Maybe the story has something written therein about how to get somebody's Danish nephew to lie in wait for the Grendels, so they can't torment a guy so.
I like the Danes; hell, I even like a good Danish, just so long as it has Cream Cheese in it.
Hooray for the Danes, know what I mean?

It says in "Hammer of the Gods" that late in the 1970s, Great Britain had a real backlash against Led Zeppelin and all the hippies.
The Damned and the Sex Pistols and a bunch of other bands hated hippies and their whole music/arts/protest scene, so they made rock and roll louder, uglier, and more violent to express their distaste about that and a mass of other facets of life.
But the same type of people joined the punks that had joined the hippies--the children of working-class and middle-class Britain and America.
Jimmy Page and Robert Plant both came from working-class families, but they reacted to adversity and poverty with majesty and glory; the next flush after that turned to instigation and malice, so what makes the difference?
Why do some endeavor to shine and others rage and whine?
But after the Equinox of Swan Song records, the rock scene experienced a real darkening of the light.

So the story of Beowulf basically deals with some Danes that didn't really fit the type of Good Guys (hey, the Danes kicked ass; where do you think Hrothgar got that jewelry?) that ended up cast as such because Grendel had an ugly grudge against Hrothgar.
I recommend it for anybody feeling overload from any of various factions of malevolence; "Beowulf" makes a bloody good adventure as well as an inspiring read, despite that they wrote it in about 1100 C.E.


--------------------
.oOo. Are you high? .oOo.
.oOo. You look like you're on some kind of drug .oOo.


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OfflineWakeUpScreaming
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Registered: 08/01/05
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Re: Anybody ever read "Beowulf"? [Re: Harmonic_Order]
    #5673871 - 05/25/06 05:21 PM (17 years, 8 months ago)

I read it. The old english version is fucking weird


--------------------
Have you ever thought as a hearse drives by
That someday soon you to will die
They wrap you up in a bloody sheet
and toss you down 1000 feet.
The worms crawl in the worms crawl out
The ant play pennuckle in your snout
The big black bug with big red eyes crawls in your innards
And out your sides
You squish him up, spread him on bread
That's what you eat when you are dead


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InvisibleLe_Canard
The Duk Abides

Registered: 05/16/03
Posts: 94,392
Loc: Earthfarm 1 Flag
Re: Anybody ever read "Beowulf"? [Re: WakeUpScreaming]
    #5673955 - 05/25/06 05:40 PM (17 years, 8 months ago)

I've read the olde English version too. It's a bit hard for the modern reader to get through.


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InvisibleCorporal Kielbasa

Registered: 05/29/04
Posts: 17,235
Re: Anybody ever read "Beowulf"? [Re: Harmonic_Order]
    #5673971 - 05/25/06 05:44 PM (17 years, 8 months ago)

Didn't every kid read this in high school?


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InvisibleAdden
I'm a teapot
Registered: 06/04/03
Posts: 39,201
Loc: Flag
Re: Anybody ever read "Beowulf"? [Re: Le_Canard]
    #5673977 - 05/25/06 05:45 PM (17 years, 8 months ago)

Old English is the only way to go. Beowulf is my favorite piece in early British literature.


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OfflineSnaggletooth
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Registered: 10/24/05
Posts: 6,109
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Re: Anybody ever read "Beowulf"? [Re: Corporal Kielbasa]
    #5673986 - 05/25/06 05:47 PM (17 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

Corporal Kielbasa said:
Didn't every kid read this in high school?






hahah yeah right, more like see spot run, the dumbing of America!

I would like too, I am a big fan of the LOTR, and that was inspired by Beowulf, among others....


--------------------


Atheist Chat


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OfflineHarmonic_Order
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Registered: 02/13/06
Posts: 412
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Re: Anybody ever read "Beowulf"? [Re: Corporal Kielbasa]
    #5673997 - 05/25/06 05:51 PM (17 years, 8 months ago)

I dunno; I barely read it because I got high before class all the time.
Plenty of schools in the U.S. don't have such great English classes, so I thought it pretty safe to ask.
I like the way the OE dipthongs and tripthongs roll off the tongue.
It takes some getting used to.

Some of the modern translations scan better; I want someone to do a speculative translation with the original Gods that the Danes worshipped.
See, the Christian scribe(s?) who recorded the version we have, edited out all the references to Odin or whomever and inserted JHVH/Jesus.


--------------------
.oOo. Are you high? .oOo.
.oOo. You look like you're on some kind of drug .oOo.


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