Storytelling In Beowulf

Beowulf is a story, one that was told for ages and ages in Old Europe. It is a product of the oral tradition, of storytelling. Storytelling is, in fact, one of the most important ways in which humans communicate, and it shapes all of our lives. In the book The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss puts it very plainly: “It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story”. That is what the storytelling in Beowulf is about. It is immensely important, especially when considering the tradition that this tale comes from. The storytelling in Beowulf serves to show how humans shape their own lives, their own stories, by telling stories

In a culture based on the telling of stories, on would expect their greatest, most famous, story to be extremely vivid. This is accomplished through the use of more stories. After Beowulf’s success against Grendel, he is praised during a celebration (or a couple of them) at Herot. “A proud old soldier… would weave a net of words for Beowulf’s victory...singing his new song aloud… and the old songs as well” (39, 867-874). This ties into a few ideas. First of all, it shows how storytelling is used to describe things. It is the invention of metaphor. (Strangely enough, this reminds me a lot of a Star Trek Episode: Darmok) Stories can describe things significantly better than regular words assembled into sentences. A story has meaning, it is part of something greater. This is where the idea of the eternal/universal story becomes relevant. In telling stories of Beowulf’s success, and relating that success to the stories of Siegmund and Fitla, the soldiers are putting Beowulf’s quests into that story. He is being immortalized just as Siegmund was before him. This is Beowulf’s ultimate goal; The treasures, the praise, the love, it is all not enough. Beowulf wants fame. He needs his name to be written down/passed on in that eternal story. He will live forever there, be forever known, long after his life ends. His tower may fall and crumble with age, but his story will