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Beowulf a la Shmoop

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Repetition

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Repetition... Repetition... Oh, sorry.

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So, Beowulf's a long epic poem.

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And part of the reason it's such a beast is that

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we hear the same stories over and over and over again.

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So, think about Beowulf killing Grendel.

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First, we get the narrator's account of the action.

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Then, Beowulf explains to Hrothgar what happened.

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So it's a little bit of a different perspective.

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And finally, he tells the story again

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when he gets home to his own Lord Higelac.

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What's the purpose of the repetition?

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You know, you're telling the same story from

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many different perspectives.

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You have great examples in modern literature where

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doing kind of the same things.

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- Yeah. - Really not exciting.

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- So, tell us - what's the purpose? - It is not exciting,

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but it's meaningful.

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It's all about perspective.

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Depending on who is telling a story

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and who they're telling it to -

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whom they're telling it to -

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we'll get a different version of the story.

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So we get the narrator telling about

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Beowulf killing Grendel. Then we have

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Beowulf telling the story. So, it's two different tellers.

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And then the third version

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is Beowulf again telling it.

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But now he's telling it to someone else; he's telling it to his Lord.

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So depending on who's telling the story

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and who it's getting told to,

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we're gonna get a different version.

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And it's not necessarily that, you know,

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Beowulf's lying when he's telling it to his Lord of the Geats

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versus when he's telling it to Hrothgar,

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but it's just that he has a different audience.

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So, for example, when he goes back home

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and he's telling it to his own Lord,

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he's trying to gain respect.

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He was -- Beowulf was not respected

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or not, you know, honored in his society.

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And what he did is he went out

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and he helped the Danes and he said, you know,

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"I'm gonna fight for these people and prove myself

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in order to gain respect."

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So when he's then telling the story to his people,

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he emphasizes how intense Grendel was

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and what a terrible monster he is.

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When he tells the story to Hrothgar,

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Hrothgar knows that.

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I mean like, hello.

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Like, Grendel destroyed his mead hall a thousand times.

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So he knows that

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and Beowulf doesn't have to talk about those details.

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But then when he goes home,

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he's trying to make himself look as heroic as possible.

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So he is making the bad guy

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look as bad as possible.

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So, again, it's really just

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the emphasis that the storyteller places

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on one aspect or another

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just gives us a different perspective of the story.

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This is super common in epic poems.

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Again, part of the reason why they're super long,

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in addition to the digressions,

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is this repetition.

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But every time you see a story repeated,

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don't think,

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"Oh, I already heard this,

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so I know what happens. I can just skim over."

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Because you're gonna probably get a different version

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than what you already read.

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What specific event gets recounted over and over and over again - and by whom?

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What's the purpose of telling the same story several times in Beowulf?

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Are the tellings of the story the same each time?

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And if not, how are they different?

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Why would they be different?

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Hello, like, Grendel destroyed his mead hall a thousand times.

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