by: Crystalle Fry
Studying Beowulf provides a valuable insight into the culture and values of the ancient Anglo-Saxon people. It introduces how the poem treats and develops universal ideas—these ideas (heroes and heroism, virtue, honor, glory, sacrifice, good/bad kings) transcend in all aspects of life, regardless of time and place. But more specifically sets the stage for addressing gender norms and the duties shared between them—especially women.
Upon further
research of the Anglo-Saxon culture, I came upon an interesting role that women
play in this time period. “Memory-Keepers” carried the burden of mourning and
burying dead husbands, fathers, and brothers after wars. They kept with them
the spoils of the war and the destruction that led to the death of their loved
ones. An example of this is seen in the text on lines 3148-3155, “With heavy
spirits they mourned their despair; the death of their lord and a sorrowful
song sang the Geatish woman, with a hair bound up, for Beowulf the King, with sad
cares earnestly said that she dreaded the hard days ahead, the times of
slaughter, the host’s terror, harm and captivity.” Here we see that her role is
to mourn the loss of her King, but is also responsible for the memories of his
death. In addition, she predicts the outcome of her people as it reminds her
that one their protector has gone, the kingdom will become a target for
invaders who seek to destroy it. Further, we see that the tale and history of
Beowulf is held in the memory of the Geatish woman.
Although mainly
a patriarchal society, women assumed the roles of “Peace Weavers” and
motivators that arguably kept clans alive and influenced peace-keeping
strategies today in times of war. Wealhtheow assumes her role as peace weaver
(a woman who is married off to make peace between warring tribes), and a
cupbearer (a woman who passed cups of mead or beer around to men). An example
of this is seen in Beowulf when
Wealththeow enters the mead hall for the first time and passes around a cup
full of mead, “Wealhtheow went forth, Hrothgar’s Queen, mindful of customs; adorned
with the guardian of the East Danes’ kingdom, bid him be merry at his beer
drinking beloved by his people, with pleasure he received the feast and cup,
victorious King. The lady of the Helming’s then went about to young and old,
gave each his portion of the precious cup (Beowulf 611-621).
The heroic
poetry of this time period is too often defined as a genre dealing exclusively
with the means of one or two supremely heroic male protagonists. The
glorification of the male, occasionally at the expense of the female, is a
defining element in this genre of poetry. However, women did exist in the
warband culture, and they did hold power. Even more interestingly, the power that
they held during the time of Beowulf
was going through a transition due to the aforesaid introduction of
Christianity. These transitions needs to be highlighted, to show that these
women (particularly the characters of Wealhtheow, Grendel’s Mother, Hygd, and
Modthryth) are not simply static figures from one moment in time, but highly
dynamic characters that reflect both Pagan and Christian influences.
I found your post very interesting. Like you stated many people do look at stories from this time period as simply the story of one heroic male figure with the women being objectified, without noticing the context of the culture of the time. I also didn't know that women served as memory keepers, and that knowledge makes the ending make more sense to me because at first i wondered why a random women that wasn't introduced earlier is crying, but with this knowledge it makes more sense to me. Women did serve much more of a role in these old stories, while they were still limited in their roles and choices, its not similar to what many people think of when they read these old stories.
ReplyDeleteThis post was very eye opening to the roles that women were to play during this time period, one of the things I learned from it was when you wrote about "memory keepers" and how the women were responsible for mourning the death of the men in their lives. This also tells me that maybe if the men were to mourn they were not allowed too because it would show weakness. So I do wonder since women were really not given any responsibilities except for serving drinks at parties and what not but they were given the duty to be the ones to mourn for their dead husbands and sons, is this because women were considered only good enough to do this. In the stories that we read in class, the female characters were strong but you could not tell until after you realized that they somehow helped the men in some way, but in the end it would be the men that took the credit for coming up with a certain idea or concept. I think it is important that through this post, there was an explanation for the different roles of women and how there were transitions from their roles as undermined to slowly becoming more equal through different writings.
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