ABSTRACT

Set in the 6th century, Beowulf is considered to be the first work of British literature. Historically, stories were passed on through the oral tradition; however, Beowulf was recorded by christian monks thereby distorting the narrative in order to reflect more wholesome Christian values. Furthermore, the darker aspects of the nordic and germanic culture typical of that time period were repressed in order to limit the alienation of Christian audiences. At first glance, we only superficially considered this convenient editing by way of the text’s lost paganistic aspects, but upon further research of Nordic and Germanic life, we realized that the authors not only covered up contemporary religious elements but cultural ideals as well.

The most telling elements of this poem are those that it lacks, which is what we ultimately decided to focus on. While being recorded, a significant portion of of the cultural ideals that were relevant to the times were excluded. We researched influential female characters and paganism in the context of Beowulf, both of which were important in Nordic and Germanic traditions and yet mysteriously absent from the text. Looking into these topics illuminated new information on the lack of incestual tendencies thorughout Beowulf, again despite the fact that they were extremely pertinent to Nordic literature, and how this absence of such a prevalent theme affected the narrative as a whole.

Our portfolio is focused on the repression of contemporary traditional religious and cultural aspects; these topics inspired our extra genere, where we explored the oppression of women though the text and history. Our presentation is a timeline representing the way beauty and power have become intrinsically linked and the ways in which that connects to the repression of the culture by leaders and other influential powers during a time period.