BEOWULF

Okay, first things first I won't lie about my confusion. Coming into this class a little late definitely threw me off , but while I'm confused, I'm super intrigued by everything.

Where to even begin? I'm not going to be shy about the fact that every few hundred lines, I'd have to stop and think "wait, what just happened?". So, this blog is going to beg the question: is Beowulf courageous? I think not, and I'll tell you why.

Socrates had an idea of what courage looked like. He also had an idea of what could be perceived as courage, but wasn't really hitting the mark.

In a philosophy class I took freshman year, we talked about what constituted courage based on Laches and other old Greek guys ideas that are still considered. The example we used was bull-fighting. Bear with me here. If someone enters a bullfight, why are they doing it? Is it for fame? Rewards? Pride? If they are entering the bullfight for selfish reasons, that's not courage, because courage (as we defined it in class) is risking your own life without any promise of reward, for someone who didn't do anything FOR you.

I may be rambling a little, but long story short, Beowulf doesn't fall into that definition of courage, he's doing it for a reward. Not that that even matters, because who cares if Beowulf is courageous? Is that even relevant to the story? Probably not.

But even when you think about whether or not he is brave, I say no again. I made a grave error and didn't mark the page, but in the book there is a comment about Beowulf that he is "indifferent to death". Then to me, by default he's not brave. Bravery suggests some kind of courage in risking your life to save others, and if Beowulf isn't really scared of dying, is he a brave man? 

Alright, well that concludes my ramblings about Beowulf's courage/bravery/lack thereof. I hope it made sense/was a somewhat interesting take!