Religion And Hell In Beowulf By Seamus Heaney

In Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney, religion and hell are referenced to many times throughout the story. “Because the poet 's obvious references to religious matters are infrequent and elementary, he would-appear to have had a slight grasp of Christianity as we understand it, unless he disguised his erudition with characteristic Anglo-Saxon understatement (Whallon).” Chapter two of Beowulf “is most interesting when it collects the familiar evidence for Christian education in the early Anglo-Saxon (Parker)” era. When he speaks of the arrows of the devil in lines 1743 through 1744, “Grown too distracted. A killer stalks him, An archer who draws a deadly bow,” “one may therefore look to a passage in Ephesians, observe that the image was common

In lines 1002-1008 it says, “escaped from by anyone: All of us with souls, earth-dwellers And children of men, must make our way To a destination already ordained Where the body, after the banqueting, Sleeps on its deathbed.“ When Grendel was indroduced into the story in the very beginning it was stated that he was living in hell and was a demon doing evil in the world. “Until finally one, a fiend out of Hell, Began to work his evil in the world. Grendel was the name of this grim demon (101).” Later in the text referring back to Grendel’s residence, “So he overcame the foe, Brought down the hell-brute (1274).” The author brings up fate in the story, “speaks only of how no one can escape fate but all must lie in a prepared place after the feast.” Which to christians bring up many debates over whether everyone is predestined or their free