Dec 20, 2009

Beowulf | Overview

Background
While the poem is Old English, it focuses on the Geats (a people who lived in the southern part of Sweden before being conquered by their traditional enemies, the Swedes, toward the end of the sixth century) and Danes. Assumed to be composed sometime in the eighth century A.D., it seems to accurately reflect Scandinavian society and history of the sixth century A.D.; Higlac’s raid of the Hathobards is historical fact.

The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes came to England from an area just below Denmark during the first great wave of Germanic...