Mood And Tone Of Beowulf
Beowulf begins with a funeral and builds toward a final note of loss and despair at another funeral when the geats wail aloud for their lord s decease l 3149.
Mood and tone of beowulf. The poem beowulf ends in an elegiac tone when he dies an honorable death when fighting a dragon to retrieve treasure. If having to choose one heroism would be the best fit. Beowulf wishes he could have kept grendel inside of heorot but says that the lord did not wish it the narrator describes grendel s arm noting again that it can t be damaged by iron weapons and that each finger has a steel like talon at its end. Beowulf fights and narrowly defeats grendel aided by god and by his valiant decision to meet grendel in hand to hand combat.
This is an epic poem. The author of beowulf contributes to the somber mood of the epic by describing beowulf s final request. While the plot of the ending of the epic is tragic itself the author of beowulf uses words and images to contribute to this somber and tragic tone. The narrator comments that beowulf has disproved unferth s claim of weakness.
But just when beowulf seems to have narrowly avoided death he must fight a second demon grendel s mother. The lake in particular adds to this unknown and treacherous environment particularly its indiscernible depth of the lake and that a strong deer would rather be killed than enter the mere. Have lost the best of kings beowulf he who held our enemies away kept land and treasure intact who saved hrothgar and the danes he who lived all his long life bravely elegiac tone elegiac. While it is true the mood changes a number of times throughout beowulf to answer what mood the poem conveys overall requires consideration of its form.
At this point beowulf begins a roller coaster ride of wild emotional ups and. Long narrative and. The author states that once beowulf bartered his last breath the twelve warriors rode around the tomb and mourned beowulf s death as a man and a king. The poet s description sets the mood for beowulf s encounter with grendel s mother by establishing that he will have to enter her realm.
His fate is in god s hands again. Beowulf does not exactly have a set mood since it shifts drastically throughout the story.