Super-Fun Existentialism Time with Grendel! Yah!

As a person with a lasting interest in philosophy, I have an intense interest in the concepts espoused by both the dragon and Grendel, especially as they contrast with the beliefs of the men in the novel. 

            Grendel begins as a classic existentialist, and as an existentialist, he is a clear proponent of Absurdism, that is, the core concept that life has no inherent meaning outside of that which we as sentient beings prescribe to it.  He sees little or nothing of value in life, and yet continues to live.  He even specifically says that the only way he could die would be in a lunatic fit and jump to his death however I think it would not be so lunatic from his perspective.  In a life that his entirely meaningless and devoid of happiness, especially one consumed by depression, why not jump?  I would almost think that to him it would be preferable to jump, to end his misery that engulfs him so entirely.  But that fact that he chooses to continue his existence gives credence to the idea that Grendel, at least before his meeting with the dragon, is not entirely nihilistic.

            And here we see a key tenet of existentialism that Grendel is ignoring:  Authenticity.  Existentialists believe that people must find oneself and then live by that self.  They believe that the only actions that matter are those that are born of the free will of individuals, and that these actions can cause one to believe in some sort of meaning, and rightfully so.  Grendel has displayed no willingness to seek out a meaning to his life, he simply wallows in his trivial existence.  That is not to say that Grendel has no desire to have meaning, he clearly expresses that he wanted to believe in the Shaper and his words of God and glory.  Grendel is bound by the belief that, and it is this which takes him to nihilism, it is impossible to have any meaning, whether preordained or temporally created.

                Grendel could, for all intents and purposes be the poster child for existentialist despair, the supposed void that those who take similar views fall into.  And, as this relates to the existentialist tenet of despair, the collapse of hope following the destruction of one’s worldview and sense of meaning.  This is said to happen when one’s life takes a drastic turn, say you’re a janitor who closely identifies him/herself with their position, and are fired.  Such a situation leads to despair, depression, etc.  However Grendel does not experience this, he never identifies a role for himself and loses it, he begins by believing that he is meaningless rather than having meaning ripped away from him. 

                I believe in an existentialist existence can be a positive one, because meaning inherited from a divine or natural force is not as powerful as a meaning that comes from within, one that is inherently individual and free.  Without such a meaning, or even a quest to obtain one, Grendel is doomed to suffer his fate, which we all know is to die at the hands of Beowulf, and worse, not just to die, but to die after accomplishing nothing.

A Response to the Poems of Chino and Jane

First up, we have a response to Chino's poem:

Chino's Blog:  http://totheenderstronghold.blogspot.com/

First of all, I really enjoyed your use of a modernist poem, it is from a period I am rather fond of, and because I don’t believe I have the same knack for analyzing them that you seem to possess, I found your analysis very interesting.  The really amazing thing, for me at least, with modernist poems, is that you can be absolutely sure that every single word means something, and that something is debatable, which can lead to several different meanings for different people.

The people in the crowds of the metro have indeed lost the life in themselves, because life isn't supposed to be a set routine, it needs to be changing and always varied, such repetition is suited only for machines at best, and that is what these people are becoming.  No, wait, they’re becoming less than that, they are the shades of the people that once were, and that must mean that they were once alive.  And the only thing that’s sadder than not having something as valuable as life is having that life and then losing it.  And yes, while I believe that the water is this poem serves more to enhance the melancholy of the scene, I still find it refreshing because it is nature, even if it is a dismal presentation of one.  Though the bough too has lost its life, much like the people in the station once had and lost their own.  It contrasts the philosophical loss of life that the people experience with the near actual loss of life of the branch itself.

Overall, I found the poem and your analysis of it fascinating, and moreover, it reminded me of why I like modernist works so much, because of the value of every word and the variable presentations they can make to different individuals.

And now to Jane:

http://clippyscorner.blogspot.com/

I think you sell yourself a bit short when you say that you have found no deeper meaning of the poem, sure, there’s no great metaphysical ideology, but I think that’s the point of the work.  The words tell of the cat’s actions, but it is really the cadence of the poem that fully envelopes you into the situation. 

Through the cadence and the rhythm of the of the poem you get a sense of not just the bland actions of the cat, but a feel for the actual movements in a way that is often understood only by those who have been around cats for a great while.  While I can say that I share no great love for cats (I fear that they and I are doomed forever at an impasse resulting in mutual respect at best), I feel that this, and not prose, best captures the actual movements of a cat, though your description of the grandiosity of their movements comes close.

And I, too, found it interesting that the cat would step into a flowerpot on its way to the pantry.  I am just wondering, why, when there is perfectly good found just round the corner, but an empty flower pot becomes more interesting to the cat   And by the way, a jamcloset is a cellar used in Victorian times to store foodstuffs such as jam that needed the cool and couldn’t be kept in the main kitchen area, not necessarily a pantry, and I think it makes it more interesting visualizing the cat sneaking into the cellar, rather than a door in the kitchen, even if it doesn’t change the meaning of the poem.

Virtue by George Herbert

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
    The bridal of the earth and sky;
The dew shall weep thy fall to night,
    For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave,
    Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye;
Thy root is ever in its grave,
    And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
    A box where sweets compacted lie;
My music shows ye have your closes,
    And all must die

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
    Like seasoned timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
    Then chiefly lives.
-George Herbert

I chose this poem because I found the dichotomy between the world and the virtuous very interesting. The most basic definition of the poem is that everything in the world is doomed to end, even the most beautiful, and only the most virtuous amongst us has the chance to live on. Plus, I thought the wording sounded really pretty :).

The poem obviously has some religion connotations. The only thing that has the ability to survive the ravager that is time is a virtuous soul, and the only way for one to live throughout eternity would be in the afterlife, meaning that you must get to heaven to survive. This makes quite a bit of sense that Herbert these things, as, in addition to being a poet, he was also an Anglican priest.
The poem is composed in four stanzas of four lines each, and in the first three stanzas, he makes a metaphor for the inevitability of death. In each stanza he presents an element of the world in a beautiful way, and then crushes it by explaining its mortality.

The first stanza speaks of the day; it is “so cool, so calm, so bright” words that are certainly positive, it makes the day a good thing, and even the dew weeps at the days lost to night. The day is an element of beauty so wonderous that even inanimate objects weep for the loss of it. And that is the key point, that the day is lost to night. Even the most beautiful is equally susceptible to being quelled by time, and it is this first example of death that sets the theme of the poem.
The second stanza is much the same as the first, it describes something that is both beautiful and fleeting, in this case a rose. And a rose is indeed beautiful, it has a vibrant and daring color, so much so that those who look upon it rashly are apt to weep tears and need to wipe their faces. But then Herbert must mention that the rose is already halfway in its grave, as its roots are in the ground. Yes, the rose is beautiful like the day, but similarly so, it is doomed to die, and it is even closer to its grave than the day is.

The third stanza is a again a repetition of Herbert's formula. He presents the spring as beautiful, even more so than a rose or the day, because it contains both in abundance. Herbert presents the spring as the time of year when everything sweet in the year is compacted into one season, and uses this to say that not just certain things, but everything will die.


 And then the fourth stanza arrives, and joyous day! Something lives! And this something is the virtuous soul, because, unlike the world stuck in its mortal coils, the virtuous soul is immortal, and though all the four things in the poem are described as sweet, it is the virtue that separates the soul from those things that die, from the whole world that must by necessity turn to coal.