[HN Gopher] "Beowulf": A Horror Show
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"Beowulf": A Horror Show
Author : Caiero
Score : 17 points
Date : 2022-09-26 03:23 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.publicbooks.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.publicbooks.org)
| wrp wrote:
| Completely disagree with her thesis. I've studied Beowulf quite a
| bit, and I've never thought of it as a horror story. Beowulf just
| doesn't fit the horror genre.
|
| > _...horror leaves readers or viewers with...a sense that, even
| though the story is over, we still have something to be afraid
| of._
|
| Unlike in the horror genre, Beowulf depicts danger coming from a
| well defined source, and conclusively eliminated by the hero's
| actions.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I'd agree that the first two sections heavily feature motifs
| and scenes that read as _very_ horror to a modern audience,
| however they were original intended. But they 're mashed
| together with roots-in-very-ancient-literature (e.g. Gilgamesh)
| nigh-superhero stuff that takes the edge off, ultimately, in a
| kind of jarring way that I expect is off-putting to a lot of
| modern readers.
|
| The third section (the dragon) reads so differently to me that
| I can't imagine it was assembled around the same time, by the
| same person. Maybe one of those two things, but not both. And I
| don't get any horror out of it whatsoever, personally. A kind
| of apocalyptic-melancholy, maybe, but not horror.
| LanceH wrote:
| Everything from just one hill past where the townsfolk
| regularly travel was of the unknown. It was _known_ that
| something strange could be living out there -- because there
| were strange things living out there. There was history of
| weird things happening to people who ventured too far away
| from the familiar. What we might perceive as expected (OMG a
| giant white bear!!!) can be very unfamiliar to those who didn
| 't grow up with an ABC book of animals.
|
| But really, read the first couple of pages and tell me that
| it's horror. It's a hero story, and it's not horror -- he's
| just up against a good villain. It's more of a western --
| drifter pulls into town on his horse, gets deputized to take
| down the out of town rancher demonizing the good people of
| the town.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| This is... not really in disagreement with what I wrote, I
| think? I wouldn't call the first two sections horror, but
| the description of the terror that Beowulf and (later) his
| mother wreak on the inhabitants of Heorot is _quite_
| horror, at least to modern eyes. The way the hall is
| _hopelessly haunted_ by this terror, much fallen from its
| glory days in ways that are plainly visible, and the
| inhabitants unable to escape their fate, is, separately,
| even pretty damn gothic-horror specifically (the extensive
| and detailed descriptions of pure carnage and its
| psychological effects are rather _not_ gothic-horror, but
| something else). The environs and inhabitants of Grendel 's
| Mother's deep mire-home, for that matter--carnage and
| terrible monsters are all over in hero fiction, as with The
| Iliad's blow-by-blow slaughter on the battlefield, or
| Gilgamesh's forest-monster, but the presentation isn't like
| _that_.
|
| But overall, yes, it's not _really_ horror because of the
| figure of Beowulf, who 's basically Superman, and has the
| exact same effect on the story that introducing Superman to
| many horror stories would.
|
| Pretty heavy horror motifs, imagery, et c., but
| structurally and viewed as a whole, not really horror. I
| agree that it's not best-characterized as horror, but
| absolutely see why someone would make the connection, and
| even think it might be useful to do so. Taking it as a
| horror-flavored hero tale isn't too far off, I'd say.
| "Superman wanders into a remote town terrorized by actual
| demons, and, predictably, easily wrecks their shit and
| saves (almost) everyone", maybe. The settings and premise
| are pretty solidly horror and are presented as such, but
| the story, not so much.
|
| Though, again, I get little or none of that from the third
| act, which is totally disconnected narratively from the
| first two anyway, aside from also starring Beowulf. It
| seems far more straightforward to me, and reads a lot like,
| say, a biblical hero-tale--there's a monster terrorizing
| the countryside and murdering away much like Grendel, but
| we don't get the horrifying descriptions of wanton murder,
| but instead Beowulf's followers holding back and quaking in
| their boots while he saves the day. Though that one's hard
| to read with fresh eyes if you've read The Hobbit and/or
| LOTR, because it has so much influence on them, and I'm
| sure being familiar with them colors one's reading of that
| section, with the result that it's hard _not_ to read it as
| proto-fantasy. The very _voice_ of it even reads more
| modern and like something from that genre, in sharp
| contrast to the prior two sections.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _I 'd agree that the first two sections heavily feature
| motifs and scenes that read as very horror to a modern
| audience_
|
| Demonstrated well by _The 13th Warrior_ (which excludes the
| third section.)
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Also, the (now quite old) video game Darklands, which takes
| a "what if the stuff dark-ages people thought was real...
| _was_ real " approach, and the result is surely horror.
| ctdonath wrote:
| Likewise. Have read it several times, clearly heroic action
| (albeit perhaps gruesome), never seemed "horror". Never
| occurred to me there was "something to be afraid of" after the
| overwrought funeral, at least nothing more than the usual risks
| of existence in the age.
|
| Horror evokes existential dread, a [quasi-]supernatural threat
| against an unwilling [relatively] impotent protagonist, often
| with an ambiguous ending. The monsters may be terrifying to the
| Danes in general, but they are not the protagonists.
|
| Action evokes willing combat, antagonist(s) viewed as
| challenger or threat to vanquish by a duty/honor-bound
| protagonist. Beowulf travels far to engage the heard-of horror,
| as challenge for pride and later protecting his people.
|
| Beowulf sees the first monster as a voluntary challenge, the
| second an obligatory follow-up, and the third a duty. Any
| subsequent vague threats are just the way of humanity; this is
| not "and they lived happily ever after."
| nix23 wrote:
| She already shows her lack of knowledge in her first sentence
| -> "The Dark Ages"
| yamtaddle wrote:
| As far as I can tell the term remains in limited use by
| modern scholars, largely to describe periods & places of the
| time span traditionally so-labeled that happen to be
| particularly lacking in primary sources so are indeed, in
| that sense, "dark", as in lacking illumination and obscured.
| Seems to me that usage would fit OK for the setting of
| Beowulf. Or it may have been employed in the colloquial
| sense, which also seems fine and clear, IMO.
| tptacek wrote:
| My question: is it _actually_ true that swear words and slang
| have no place in epics? Like, if we consider all the major epics
| in their time, we won 't find the historical equivalent of swears
| or abusive language of any sort in them?
|
| For starters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_obscenity
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Beowulf (like most Scandinavian or Scandinavian-influenced
| writing around that time) basically has rap-battles in it. You
| want to put in modern slang and swearing and such, that's where
| I'd do it, personally.
|
| [EDIT] Those parts are also fucking boring in most
| translations, so would be the most-improved by such an
| approach.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Regarding Headley's work: At what point does a "translation"
| become "Interpretation"? There seems to be no argument in the
| several reviews/comments I have seen of the book, that she is
| claiming a literal translation or to understand Beowulf in a
| traditional sense. As a non-lit major, it seems past writers have
| attempted to capture the mechanisms and literal meaning and tone
| of the original, in the most accessible way possible for the
| language and dialect of the time. Headly said "fuck it" and used
| particularly modern slang to make almost a parody of the telling.
|
| I'm not offended by it, but /if/ it can be said that prior
| translators kept their bias and creativity to the minimum
| required to maintain story and poetic elements, she went far
| beyond such shackles. It therefore would never be considered a
| canonical work, even if it sees uptake in some classrooms.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Yeah, even this fairly-positive (ultimately) review ends up
| painting it more as an adaptation or workin-inspired-by-X than
| a translation. Almost a parody, even.
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