I kind of wanted to
start off talking about the clips that Dr. MB posted for us to watch/listen to.
I love the reading that Seamus Heaney did. He just has a really comforting
reading voice; it's nice to listen to. The fact that the reading is also in
Modern English doesn't hurt either. The second reading, the one is
Old English that is then explained in Modern English is very helpful for
starting to get the idea of how it was meant to sound in the original. The explanation
was also helpful to understand the meaning of certain words. Then there was the
video of the performance, with the man and whatever the heck that instrument
was? That was kind of scary. The
subtitles helped at least a bit with context but man was I confused for a bit. I
really did enjoy the music on that harp thing? What’s that actually called? The
facial expressions were what actually killed me. It was hard to take him too
seriously. I’m actually impressed he did it without breaking out into fits of
laughter.
Moving on from
that, the rest of this blog post may be somewhat disjointed and hodge-podge-y
and I’m sorry for that. I think “whale-road” is probably my new favourite way
to say ocean or sea. How cool is that? Whale-road. It’s not inaccurate I just
wonder why whales get the honour and not sharks or fish or eels. Is it because
whales were the biggest thing seen in the ocean and all these guys in the story
were on mad power-trips?
Tangent aside, I do
like the idea of the leading questions. For starters, what makes a good leader?
In my opinion, and I think also in this time, a good leader protects his/her people
(but for the sake of this antiquated, sexist because it has no other options
story, let’s just stick with male pronouns for rulers/leaders/warriors/etc.). I’m
sure there are many other factors that make a good leader but I think the focus
should always been on the people. If you don’t keep them safe then you have no
one to rule. So what’s the point? Hrothgar (in my opinion) failed quite
impressively as a ruler. He may have done some fairly decent stuff in his
younger years but he just gave up. Even the most basic of issues, he knows his
hall gets attacked every night and still he lets men sleep there, naked and
unarmed, while he goes off to the safety of his own chambers with his wife. He
doesn’t even have the decency to warn the guys that they’ll 100% for-sure get
slaughtered if they stay there. But hey, whatever, I’m sure Grendel loves the
treat.
So I’m sorry for
the rambling, disjointed, slightly strange blog post, and for the ensuing cat
photo that’s not related to what I wrote in the slightest but is related to
Beowulf. Or really rather Grendel.
In my opinion a good leader is someone with good morals all around. I do believe that in order to be a good leader, he or she needs to protect their people first and foremost. In addition, a good leader needs to be persuasive. People need to believe what is coming out of their leaders mouth. A good leader always follows what they believe is right. Beowulf made many alliances with the Danes, he brought riches to his people, he defended his people, and was eventually an effective king. I consider Beowulf an effective leader. Although Beowulf was a good leader, some may argue that he wasn’t that great. Many good leaders have loyal followers, but in Beowulf’s case only one of his followers stayed true to him. Beowulf basically inspired a lot of phoney and cowardly men.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Hrothgar should give Beowulf and his men a heads up that the hall gets attacked every night! It is so strange that they party all evening and then go to bed right when they should be ready to fight Grendel. And of course the night guards fall asleep on duty! Besides that one part, Hrothgar seems to be doing a decent job at being a leader. I like DR. MB’s answer that it is not in Hrothgar’s job description to fight. Recently I have learned that in leadership positions it is best to understand your limits and delegate what you can’t do to those ranked lower than you. I would be much more upset at Hrothgar if he rejected Beowulf’s help and took his offer as an insult to his ability to protect his people.
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