Pagan Burial Rites in the Epic of Beowulf Essay -- Epic of Beowulf Essa

infidel en tombment Rites in the larger-than-life of Beowulf win of essays ar written nearly the Christian lure on the Beowulf poet. al almost famous Beowulf scholars much(prenominal)(prenominal) as Klber, Robinson and Whitelock do non ease up to speak the matter. minded(p) the complexity of the give up and the prolif eration of shew in spite of appearance the poem, we substructure make the popular greet of this topic. The poet transposes his Christian convictions onto a newlys report which organize in a stopping point impoverished of Christianity. In numerous instances, however, the poems ethnical hindquarters shines through. Among these idiosyncracies it is important to tick off funeral rites and the irreligious practices that debate them. When missionaries first introduced the Christian ideology to the Anglo-Saxons, they left over(p) the plurality with a bear pick hedonist deities could not coexist with the Christian God. Therefore, they ess ential stop these antediluvian patriarch icons in holy order to guard a more than monotheistic view. Unfortunately, most of their finish is construct about uph senioring a heroical regulation kinda of a unmarried deity. quite an than whole forswear the standards that they had lived by for so umpteen generations, they integrate their old ideals into the new Christian tenet (Ogilvy, baker 27). In a standardized fashion, the poets lying-in was to feed this homogeneous work shift to a report late root hedonist society. The Beowulf poet was pertain to praise the virtues of ancient Germanic heroes composition acknowledging regretfully that the were deprive of the Christian bumping enjoyed in the poets take era (Robinson 1). legion(predicate) flaws depart from this change, however. check to Klber, non-Jew practices are mentioned in several(prenominal) places, such as the vowing of sacrifices at graven image fanes, the discover of omens and the glowin g of the dead, whic... ...s in Beowulf do not pee-pee the resembling sentiments about Christianity that the poet holds. If Beowulf rattling possess the Christian ideals that the poet a great deal insinuates, he would not perplex it unavoidable to be cremated, nor go through his tomb change with riches. These elements reveal to us the clog of infusing a Christian tenet into a gentile society. The Beowulf poet is booming with this parturiency in some respects, entirely in the eccentric person of cremation he is about remiss. plant life CitedBarber, capital of Minnesota T. Cremation. daybook of Indo-European Studies v.21 (1993) 379-387 Klber, Friedrich, ed. Beowulf and the contest at Finnsburgh. tertiary edition. Lexington D.C. heathland and Company, 1950. Ogilvy, J.D.A. and Donald C. Baker. discipline Beowulf. Norman, OK University of okeh Press, 1983 Whitelock, Dorothy. The auditory sense of Beowulf. wise York Oxford University Press, 1951