Ok, so am I going to get in trouble for admitting that the majority of this book was incredibly boring to me? Don't get me wrong, the story was great, but emphasis was always placed on the gatherings and conversations and not much time was devoted to the battle scenes.
Now, please don't mistake me for an action junkie. I don't think any book/movie/tale is complete with six fight sequences, a sensual moment between the protagonist and his lady, and a sunshine and rainbows ending (I need more substance than that). But there was so much hype over Grendel's destruction and only a handful of verses were devoted to his death. The same thing happened again with his mother and again with the dragon. More time was spent introducing bad guys, giving out prizes for their defeat, and retelling the whole thing over again to someone else.
Is this kind of writing just how it was done back then? Something with this little detail given to pivotal scenes would never make it onto this century's best seller list but Beowulf has endured almost twelve hundred years now and is (obviously) still being read. It's really interesting to me to look at the literature of these different time periods and see how the writing styles have changed. We are still penning new hero vs. dragon stories to this day but they sound absolutely nothing like this classic epic.
P.s. I commented on Sharla's post
I think one problem with this is that we are reading it in English. But I totally agree with the wordiness. I guess their cultural writing style valued war/family history?
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