The Tensions In The Poem Beowulf
“So, a man wise in mind spoke to himself as he sat: Good is the man who holds trust, keeps faith, / never speaks too quickly about the storm / of his pain or passion unless he knows / how to perform a cure on his own heart. / It is well for a man to seek mercy for himself / from his Father in heaven where security stands, / and where we can still find beyond perishing / a permanent place, an eternal home”.
This is a piece rich with contrast and rife with tension. The final stanza, spoken by the man snottor on mode or “wise in mind”, exemplifies two central tensions essential to understanding the work as a whole: the permanence of Heaven comparative to the temporality of this physical world (as well as the relative permanence of nature comparative to man-made society) and the individuality of the Christian faith in contrast to the communal focus of Anglo-Saxon paganism. The very premise of this piece as an elegy or lament of a wanderer bemoaning his isolation and “exile” from his commitatus is juxtaposed with the advocacy of individual security and salvation in Christ alone. It relays the universal tale of a floundering foundling, “seeking a lord / who might heal my history, hold my heart”.
The “storm”— though figurative in this stanza — plays a prominent role throughout the poem as a symbol for struggle and the trials of this temporal world, as “hard hail harrows the living”. Thus, in actuating “pain and passion” to these storms, Throughout the poem the sea and cliffs are contrasted with the snow, hail, and storms, as when “. Viewed practically, the sea and the cliffs work as symbols of permanence and the storms as mere temporary afflictions. The constancy of the cliffs through the storm could perhaps be taken as analogous to the security in Christ mentioned in the final stanza — lending strength to this wayfaring stranger as he “endures the exile’s road”. However, unlike the cliffs that may, too, be read as an illustration of nature’s permanence, the “walls” and “hallways” are damned by the frailty of their makers — undoubtedly presenting a contrast between ephemeral, man-made society and the constancy of nature.
Yet nature, too, is acknowledged as finite and fleeting; lines just as “the old works of giants stood idle / and empty of the hall-joys of men”, so too, “this earthly foundation stands empty and idle”. This, too, serves to further highlight the futility of faith in this physical world. The “wise man’s” commendation of the man who “never speaks too quickly about the storm of his pain or passion” unless he “knows how to perform a cure on his own heart” provides a direct contrast to the Wanderer’s search for a lord to “heal his history” and “hold his heart”. This — of course — is a hypothetical statement, implying the impossibility of curing one’s own heart. However, it does evoke the individuality and autonomy available when independent of a community — which is inevitably centered upon a lord. “In heaven where security stands, ” as “Wander his headland, / discover his lord unburied, undead”.
