The 2007 movie Beowulf was a re-imagining of the classic English epic, for a more modern time and audience. In the days of the initial Beowulf, which is suspected to have originated in oral form around the sixth century CE (“Beowulf” 37), the world that people lived in would have been one that was dark and cold, where danger and evil could be lurking behind the nearest tree. In these days, people assembled in and cherished any place that would provide them even minimal shelter from the world outside, such as mead-halls. The tale of Beowulf recognized and honored that space which was necessary for survival, and perhaps somewhat sacred, in sixth century society through a story of a strong, infallible hero protecting the house of the innocent from the cruelty of evil. In a time when strength would have been considered one of the greatest virtues achievable by man, Beowulf could not help but survive the following centuries long enough to be transcribed and forever encapsulated in the folds of human history.
While this story may have been lauded in its original day, it loses its old luster on newer readers, who look at the epic with a critical twenty-first century eye. We have come a long way from the time when strength and beauty were the only qualifications for goodness or when stupidity and ugliness were the sign of evil. As humans, we no longer ask whether or not we will survive the night but whether evil may in fact be beautiful and strength may in fact be a weakness. That is what the 2007 movie version of Beowulf is about, the idea that heroes are not gods and that evil does not come from the darkness of the cave but the darkness of the human heart. As one of the most famous epics known to man, Beowulf has acted not just as a story but as a measure of the values of every society that has adopted it over the centuries. Each time it passes hands, Beowulf the character becomes more flawed and more human, demonstrating that the stories we want to see are not about superheroes or gods, lifted higher than we can ever be, but about ourselves in all of our failings. The biggest question that Beowulf the movie has left me with is not what will happen next, but how will the next societies retell and reimagine this classic?
Works Cited:
“Beowulf.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, edited by Stephen Greenblatt and M. H. Abrams, 9th ed., A, W.W. Norton & Co., 2012, pp. 36–108.
Zemeckis, Robert, director. Beowulf. Paramount Pictures, 2007.
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