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Beowulf And The Seafarer Essay

1022 Words5 Pages

The foundations of British literature display the relationship between how the characters, the setting, and the idea that one of their most important values is fate and devotion to God, directly relating to the early British epic Beowulf and to Bede’s A History of the English Church and People. The Seafarer, one of the origins of British tradition, is reflected in both the place of where the poem takes and their relationship and emotion to the place and the values at this time. The sea is the main setting of where The Seafarer takes place and it reflects the values and the people at this time the poem explains “The hailstorms flew. The only sound was the roaring sea, The freezing waves. The song of swan Might serve for pleasure, the cry of …show more content…

Even though Beowulf was written by the Danish people, it shows the early foundations of English literature, and how the Danish people brought Danish culture into British literature. Beowulf’s setting is in the Danish sea were Beowulf the son of the King of Denmark is a powerful warrior who has the traits and characteristics of a bear and a wolf. The novel describes the setting as “The sea, would point the prow straight to that distant Danish shore” (Beowulf line 44). The people’s distant view of the shore shows how they hope for fate to come to them, and fate is the values of the people. A quote from the story shows that fate is the values of the people “Life ruled by fate” (Beowulf line 40). Life rules the people’s lives and their values of fate in God “The fate of his lost friends and companions” (Beowulf line 43). When life starts to fade away, their other important values like friends and family, begin to fade away in the distant just like the setting of the Danish shore. Beowulf’s setting at sea relates to the three early British poems because they all take place on the ocean and their values of fate relate to Beowulf because in each poem they all have the fate, but in a different way. The powerful words used in Beowulf attribute to the British tradition and the values, emotions, and

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