Line 2565 says something I find surpringly noteworthy. As a much older, physically weaker Beowulf enters into battle with the dragon that has been wreaking havoc over his kingdom, the text labels them both as antagonists. "Each antagonist struck terror in the other." Each antagonist just strikes me as odd. Shouldn't Beowulf be a protagonist? Why is he counted as an antagonist along with the irksome reptile? So I turned to Google and looked up the proper definitions of protagonist and antagonist. Protagonist simply means the main character. Whereas an antagonist is an adversary. Did the Anglos view life as having no main character other than God? Or fate as they say often in the text? That we are just kind of caught up in it all? Only being able to choose whether to help or harm one another as we go on our way?
P. S. I commented on Brannen's post.
I think this is so interesting. Should anyone besides God himself be the main character? It almost minimizes Beowulfs grand death, because it wasn't a good versus evil, it was inherently flawed versus inherently flawed.
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