Beowulf Circa Eighth Century - Jane C. Nitzsche (essay date 1980)
Jane C. Nitzsche (essay date 1980)
SOURCE: "The Structural Unity of Beowulf: The Problem of Grendel's Mother," in Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Vol. 22, No. 3, Fall, 1980, pp. 287-303.
[In the excerpt that follows, Nitzsche discusses the contrast between Grendel's mother and the feminine ideal and also analyzes her fight with Beowulf as a transitional link between Beowulf's battle with Grendel and with the dragon.]
The episode in Beowulf involving Grendel's mother has been viewed as largely extraneous, a blot upon the thematic and structural unity of the poem. If the poem is regarded as two-part in structure, balancing contrasts between the hero's youth and old age, his rise as a retainer and his fall as a king, his battles with the Grendel family and his battle with the dragon, then her episode (which includes Hrothgar's sermon and Hygelac's welcoming court celebration with its recapitulation of earlier events)...
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