I actually think this read of Grendel fits well with the thesis that's been proposed now and then about there being some kind of implicit critique of the heroic ethos which is also in more overt ways celebrated in the poem. Passages I'd point to in support of this possible metaphorical read are wherever we're told about Grendel not being amenable to the wergild system--so he sort of embodies the breakdown of that system. Connect this to the other explicit breakdowns: feuds, outbreaks of violence in halls. And as to kin-slaying, the passage I've always found most moving in the whole poem is the so-called father's lament (line 2054 and following in T's translation) where the argument Beowulf is making seems to be that in kin-slayings there is no point in recompense. It's like the snake eating its own tail. Then contrast all this with what Shippey calls the "poem's warm center": the genuine affection and trust in the Geatish court. But since that's all too liable to be wiped out by time and rash decisions, edwenden-forgetting of the kind Hrothgar points to in his long sermon, the turn from heroic vengeance to Christian forgiveness ultimately seems to be the poem's response, or at least it's heading thataway, as Tolkien argues in Monsters and Critics. Once all men are brothers, all killing is kin-slaying; once the sacrifice has been made in Christ's death and resurrection, all recompense has been paid. But what an enormous leap of faith from the heroic ethos and its representation in the actual structure of society to this revelation, this cosmic revaluation!
To a reference to John Gardner's Grendel:
I read Gardner's Grendel recently, found it interesting as a work of art in its own right, though it didn't seem to offer all that much insight into the original poem. It's short, so I think it's worth a read. But I'd say it's a travesty that some English curricula replace Beowulf with Grendel, and a sad comment on/emblem of the shifts in education and culture that seem to be getting Mike all worked up :)
In response to Mike's question, What is a monster?
Interesting inquiries indeed!
P 159 of the commentary offers one helpful distinction at least, between 'physical monsters' and 'a creature damned irretrievably,' a distinction Grendel seems to blur. The category monster seems to be characterized by uncanny, mysterious vagueness by definition, at least for a poet working on the threshold between heroic paganism and Christian theology.
I think of monsters in terms of a dialectic with heroes: monsters are those evils which heroes slay to establish new order out of chaos. George and the dragon, sort of thing. The difference between the hero and the monster lies not in raw power or potential for destruction, but in creative use of that power. Purposelessness, then, is the great danger, along with self-deception/despair. The challenge seems to be to set up higher and higher targets to shoot for, while not setting it too impossibly high. This can become a little absurd, right, with a hero like Superman who is too OP. So your hero has to have his flaw, or there has to be some flaw in the system itself to keep things interesting. Love is a good one: Aragorn and Arwen, Launcelot and Guinevere. Or pride/hubris, like Hygelac or Dante's Odysseus. Or anger: Achilles. Heroic stories and the encounter with monsters/evils of all sorts help with establishing some kind of framework for the even more mysterious category of the human. So I think we tend to find these stories endlessly fascinating.
A good recent take on it is the game Undertale, if people have played that. Kat brought up Gardner's Grendel. It has an interesting take on the hero-monster question, if people have looked at that one.
Or if people have read Monsters and Critics, that might be a good place to turn, too. I don't have a copy to hand, but maybe there are some passages in there which would be illuminating for more of Tolkien's ideas on the question?
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