/The Heroic Age/

Issue 7
Spring 2004
-----------------------------------------------------------------------/Civilized Rage in 'Beowulf'/

by Thomas L. Wymer <mailto:twymer@bgnet.bgsu.edu> and Erin F.

Labbie <mailto:labbie@bgnet.bgsu.edu>
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, Ohio

*Abstract*
"Civilized Rage in /Beowulf/" argues that there is a difference
between controlled rage and uncontrolled rage in /Beowulf/.
Controlled rage is useful to the development of social relations and
the nation; uncontrolled rage is damaging to civil interaction and
the formation of society. We work with Norbert Elias' work on
Civilization to determine that evidence of the socialization present
in 13th century court society is also incipient in /Beowulf/.

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 2004 by Thomas L. Wymer and Erin F. Labbie. All rights reserved.

This edition copyright 2004 by /The Heroic Age/. All rights
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Norbert Elias's notion of civility is based on the assumption that

the nation as a social structure was not yet established in the
Middle Ages, and that the historical development of civility led to
the reigning in and subduing, indeed, sublimation, of emotions. For
Elias, members of medieval cultures took social pleasure in the
performance of violent battle. He claims that life in medieval
societies was openly violent and lent itself to the satiation of
instincts and drives fulfilling both pain and pleasure. "Rapine,
battle, hunting of men and animals--all these were vital necessities
which, in accordance with the structure of society, were visible to
all. And thus, for the mighty and strong, they formed part of the
pleasures of life" (Elias 1994 <labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor343982>,
1:158). Although much of his evidence for the blood-lust and
pleasure taken in killing ostensibly rampant in the Middle Ages is
taken from Troubadour songs, he does note that epics also are
integral parts of social formations. "They express the feelings of
the listeners for whom they are intended far more directly than most
of our literature" [1] <labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor306295>.
Enfolded within Elias' /The Civilizing Process/ is a mode of
thinking about instincts and drives as partially constituted
constructs, in a manner that Foucault would depend on for his own
history of various institutions, taxonomies, and disciplines.[2]
<labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor306572> . Elias describes the results of
the historical transformation by which relatively uninhibited
warlike instincts are "confined and tamed by innumerable rules and
prohibitions that have become self-constraints," so that "cruelty
and joy in the destruction and torment of others, like the proof of
physical superiority, are placed under an increasingly strong social
control anchored in the state organization (Elias 1994
<labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor343982> 1:157-8).
Many factors and forces entered into the strengthening of social
control by state organizations, but a fundamental problem at the
root of that transformation was basic weaknesses in the kind and
degree of social control typical within warrior cultures. These
weaknesses are especially evident in /Beowulf/, in its elegiac
portrayal of a social order on the edge of dissolution and in its
ambiguous portrayal of a uniquely heroic figure. The elegiac tone is
directly linked to the uniqueness of Beowulf's heroism in
Anglo-Saxon literary heritage. The poem consistently remarks that
there was none like him before and will never be another like him
again. What is especially interesting about his heroism is his
unique ability to handle that fundamental problem of warrior
cultures, the use and control of rage.
The problem of rage begins with the fact that in the right context,
in battle, rage is almost always presented as a positive force. When

warriors are fighting successfully in the/Iliad/, for instance, they

are typically described as being in some sort of rage, in a killing
frenzy that seems to render them--for the time at
least--unstoppable. More than an emotional state, rage can lead the
warrior to achieve a state of spiritual ecstasy that obliterates any
possibility of cowardice or concern for one's own safety and focuses
the warrior totally on the business of killing; such a transfer of
the ostensibly destructive force of rage to the constructive force
of spirituality is dependent upon a belief in a power larger and
higher than the subject at stake in battle. This power can take the
form of a god, God, the nation, or a philosophical belief that one
is fighting for a larger good. Battle rage then can be a
transcendent experience, generating in the warrior himself as well
as in his companions, and especially in his enemies, the belief that
he is possessed by a god of war. Epic literature has consistently
presented battle rage as conducive to winning; from the /Iliad/ to
/Beowulf/, and in later Norman texts such as /Raoul de Cambrai/, it
is prized and cultivated by warriors. If literature is any
indication of what was at stake in historical social contexts, then
we can assume, with Elias, that it reflects and constructs a form of
paradoxical pleasure in violent conflict. Rage is either highly
ritualized, such as in controlled battles and therefore "in
control," or it is out of control, such as in cases of inter-kin
conflict.
Rage, therefore, serves the community for whom the warrior
fights--as long as that rage is directed solely against the
community's enemies or the "other" against whom the group is
battling. Unfortunately, such restraint is not always evident in
contexts outside of battle. In the /Iliad/ the plot turns on the
fact that battle rage emerges in inappropriate contexts, from which
emerges a central paradox on which Homer's plot rests: battle rage
sustains and profits the community by assuring its victory against
outside forces, while it threatens to destroy the community when the
warrior hero cannot control himself among his own friends and
allies. It is also a major source of the epic's tragic impact, the
ironic fact that the hero's greatest strength is likewise the source
of his greatest weakness. It is a paradox that all warrior cultures
struggle with, limited today to certain subcultures and manifesting
its effects in the problems of veterans returning from foreign wars,
neighborhood gangs that despoil their own communities, and violent
athletes who abuse their spouses.
This theme involves a fairly fundamental feature of warrior
cultures. It is not surprising, therefore, that it is developed
extensively as well in /Beowulf/, but it is surprising that so
fundamental a notion does not seem to have been noticed anywhere in
the /Beowulf /criticism. The need to control anger or wrath or rage
is, of course, commonly noted, but there is a special edge given to
that idea in recognizing the importance in these cultures of
encouraging and cultivating rage. Recognizing the positive value of
rage also illuminates the special nature of Beowulf's heroism. And
placing the poem in its historical context in the light of Elias'
notions of the civilizing process helps account for why the concept
of rage as portrayed in the hero is imbued with elegaic nostalgia.
Martin Puhvel, in his comparison between the pre-battle fury

traditional in Celtic lore and Beowulf's pre-battle fury, lends some

insight into why rage has not been explored more thoroughly in the
literature. He notes the fact that Beowulf's rage never gets out of
hand: "Beowulf is no volatile Achilles buffeted by fits of fierce
emotion, prominently wrath." This leads him to minimize the
importance of rage in his speculation that "one may well suspect the
presence in the Anglo-Saxon epic of a somewhat superficially
superimposed influence of the Celtic motif in question," and he can
only conclude that "[Beowulf's] pre-battle fury seems altogether
anomalous" (Puhvel 1979 <labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor386846>, 53-54).
Puhvel sees Beowulf's rage as a superficial motif, in other words,
because, in being so under control, it is so unlike the more common
exemplar of Celtic battle rage, the /berserker/. Beowulf's
pre-battle fury is certainly anomalous, but it is far from
superficial. In fact, it is precisely that unique handling of rage,
which signals its importance to understanding the actions and
reactions of the primary characters in the epic, and to
understanding how Beowulf functions as a unique and exemplary hero.
If we see /Beowulf/ as A. Kent Hieatt describes it, "commentary
through and through," "a tissue of oblique allusions and highly
stylized elegiac passages intended to build a particular atmosphere
and a particular feeling about life, more than it is a straight
narration of a series of events in the life of a hero,"[3]
<labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor306813> then we are better prepared to
perceive that the commentary being asserted about battle rage
reveals its connection with the social order. This view is also
consistent with Katheryn Hume's argument that Beowulf is about
"threats to social order" (Hume 1975
<labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor370335>, 5) and John D. Niles' claim
that the poem is about community (Niles 1993
<labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor383661>, 860, 862). This theme is
pursued even further, in separate contexts, by Hugh Magennis (1996
<labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor381340>) and John M. Hill. As Hill
argues, "The crucial [social] imperative is the settling of feuds
and the continuation of fruitful exchange, the latter creating or
else intensifying further kinship between individuals and peoples"
(Hill 1997 <labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor361722>, 265). But none of
these commentators explores the way in which rage is presented as
possessing the greatest potential not only to destroy, but to
preserve the sense of community within the warrior cultures of
/Beowulf/.
A more useful approach might be to follow the lead of Norbert Elias,
who in his ground-breaking study, /The Civilizing Process/, examines
the growth of civilization in Medieval society in terms of the rise
of emotional self-control:
how restraints through others from a variety of angles are
converted into self-restraints, how the more animalic activities
are progressively thrust behind the scenes of men's communal
social life and invested with feelings of shame, how the
regulation of the whole instinctual and affective life by steady
self-control becomes more and more stable, more even and more
all-embracing (Elias 1982 <labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor344535>,
2: 230).

In his examination of this process, however, Elias focuses on the

age of feudalism at its height, in the context of courtly society,
neglecting its precursors in both the classical world and the
earlier Middle Ages.[4] <labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor307046> He
focuses little attention on that prior period before the shift from
physical battle to rhetorical debate and juridical inquisition, when
the more "animalic" drives such as physical rage are thrust into the
background. What Elias does point out that is significant to an
application of his argument about the later Middle Ages to /Beowulf/
(and this is an argument that Foucault will later rely on for his
repressive hypothesis) is that in the above shifts which "civilize"
culture by eliminating open and rampant physical battle, rage is in
fact foregrounded in conjunction with an ideal of control.
Therefore, although he makes no mention of /Beowulf/, partly due to
political decisions, and partly due to the time period he is
studying, Elias' theory of the process of civilization does what
Freud's /Civilization and its Discontents /would be hard pressed to
do--it shows the possibility for a controlled rage within violent
battle, as it is the inverse of violent rage in controlled courtly
discourse. This is the crucial aspect of a reading of the epic elegy
that focuses on the problematic of rage.
/Beowulf /can be seen as a work which chronicles the earliest stage
in the process of controlling rage. This is a stage in which a model
of self-restraints, operating within a context Elias describes as
one "where the strongest functional dependence between people is
still that of war and violence" (Elias 1982
<labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor344535>, 2:87), is built around a
special and precarious kind of control exerted on perhaps the most
primal feature of warrior societies, the experience and cultivation
of rage. With its emphasis on community the poem explores the
struggle to maintain civilization against the forces of unrestrained
passion, and it offers a model, which in important ways both
anticipates and falls short of the courtly ideal which Elias sees as
developing within and transforming feudalism into a more organized
civilization. We shall demonstrate this by examining the contexts in
which rage occurs, most commonly expressed by the various forms of
/belgan/, and by considering how the /Beowulf/ poet relates the
incidents involving rage to the concept of social order developed in
the poem.
First, rage needs to be seen clearly as differing from all other
kinds of anger expressed in /Beowulf/ and as having specific
applications. Niles provides us some excellent insight into the
special qualities of rage in /Beowulf/ when, in discussing the
difficulty of translating the Old English word /gebolgen/, and
referring to Puhvel, he maintains that "ordinary human beings may be
angry, but only the monsters and the hero are swollen in a way that
may call to mind the violent battle-fury of the Scandinavian
/beserkr/ or, as Martin Puhvel has remarked, the still more violent
war-spasm of Celtic heroes like Cuchulain" (Niles 1993
<labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor383661>, 865). Yet Niles is no more able
than Puhvel to make anything out of Beowulf's uniqueness among
humans in this regard.
An examination of the way the word /belgan/ has been traditionally

defined also lends insight into both the curious nature of the word
and the surprisingly curious way the significance of rage has been
overlooked in Beowulf scholarship. The verb /belgan/, according to
both /A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary/ (Clark Hall 1975) and the
new /Dictionary of Old English/[5]
<labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor309090> means "to be or become angry,"
or "to offend, provoke." The various occurrences of forms of
/belgan/ are traditionally translated in accordance with this
dictionary definition--Raffel, Kennedy, Crossley-Holand, Chickering,
and most recently Seamus Heaney are typical.[6]
<labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor309565> However, there are some notable
exceptions, including, for example, Klaeber (1950
<labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor347959>), who defines these forms in
some contexts as "rage," and Donaldson, who, following Klaeber,
translates them almost always as some form of rage, usually "swollen
with rage." If /belgan/ means "rage," "enraged," or "swollen with
rage" then a reading of the relationship between warrior energy and
the formation of social communities is much more pervasive in a
thorough reading of /Beowulf/ than has been previously argued. Each
time that /belgan/ is employed in the text of /Beowulf/, the poetic
context involves a situation in which the social order is at stake;
further, in every case in which rage is appropriate, it appears to
be cultivated consciously as an essential part of preparation for
battle.[7] <labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor309805>
From the use of "rage" in Beowulf we can draw the following conclusions:
1. Rage is a tool used by the Good to maintain the social order.
2. Rage is cultivated, reached through a process that is
controlled and subordinated to a rational end when it is used
for good.
3. Rage out of control is a serious threat to the social order.
4. Rage out of control can most effectively be met by rage in
control.
It may appear paradoxical, or even contradictory, to assert a
difference between controlled rage and rage that is out of control;
however, a clarification of modes of violence within Anglo-Saxon
culture, as opposed to the chaos and the unpredictability of
violence known as "terrorism" as seen from the point of view of our
contemporary global culture of order and unity, reveals that the
distinction underlies a history of western approaches to community
formation, societal regulation, and order.
The subtle but crucial distinction between controlled rage and rage
that is "out of control" depends of course on perspective and the
determination of "good" from "evil." Rage that is consciously
mustered and "controlled" will appear to the enemy as if it is "out
of control" since the two opposing sides in a battle will often lack
the communication to perceive the rationale of the other. This is
not always historically the case, however. Significant moments in
Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman literature reveal that battle can often
occur in a manner that is completely ordered. The difference between
these ordered battles and those that appear more chaotic and
uncontrolled is marked by the distinction of the degree to which the

warriors are championing personal, or intimate political causes, as

they stand in opposition to those who are championing the causes of
a larger community, culture, or nation.
The first occurrence of a form of /belgan/, one of the two instances
of /bolgenmod/, is in the lines which describe Beowulf's temperament
as he awaits the visit by Grendel:
/t ws yldum cu,
t hie ne moste, a Metod nolde,
se s[c]ynscaa under sceadu bregdan,
ac he wccende wraum on andan
bad bolgenmod beadwa geinges./
It was known to the elders
that the hostile foe must not,
the Lord did not will it, drag them under shadow.
But [Beowulf], watchful, with indignant wrath,
awaited, swollen with rage, the results of battle. (ll.705-709)
[8] <labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor310499>
Translators like Chickering, Crossley-Holland, Kennedy, and Raffel
define /bolgenmod/ here as "angrily," "with increasing anger," "in
anger," or "angry"; Heaney renders it "spoiling for action";
Donaldson is better, offering "swollen in anger." We prefer
translations such as "with enraged spirit" or "swollen with rage."
The difference between "anger" and "rage" signals respectively the
difference between an emotion felt in response to injury or offense,
and one felt during or immediately prior to battle. Indeed, forms of
/anger/, it could be argued, are not even logical translations for a
passage that situates events within a battle scene. Hrothgar has
suffered injury, while Beowulf has taken upon himself the task of
redressing that injury. As Beowulf the warrior waits for Grendel to
arrive, his tension rises since on his shoulders rests perhaps the
last chance for Heorot, a symbol of civilized and just order, to
survive, and his rage "swells" in anticipation as he invokes the
pre-battle fury that is part of a warrior's preparation for battle.
As rage, a state of emotional readiness for battle, /bolgenmod/
makes perfectly good sense, especially in this context where it is
focused for justifiable battle. The translation as "anger," however,
offsets and undermines the communication of the significance that
Beowulf's role as champion of Heorot plays in the struggle of a
kingdom. Instead, "rage" in the process of being summoned and
strengthened--/bolgenmod/--symbolizes and transmits the relevance of
the battle in the development and maintenance of a society mutually
opposing a malevolent Other.
Rage appears here as the culmination of a process of preparation for
battle that would normally include the warrior arming himself for
battle, but in this case, the process includes some degree of
disarming. Beowulf must meet his opponent on balanced and equal
footing in order to maintain his honor. This part of the process of
preparation should not be overlooked, because all three of the major
fights in the poem focus on the balance of weapons between Beowulf
and his opponents and how well those weapons stand up to battle.
Knowing that Grendel bears no arms, Beowulf disarms himself,

choosing to meet his enemy on equal terms, a decision that he

expresses as part of his pre-battle boast: "/No ic me an herewsmum
/ hnagran talige // gugeweorca, / onne Grendel hine,/" "I count
myself no less in battle strength, in war deeds, than Grendel does"
(ll. 677-678). He goes on to say that "/nat he ara goda, / t he
me ongean slea, // rand geheawe, eah e he rof sie //
nigeweorca/," "He [Grendel] knows not those good things [e.g.,
swords] that he might strike me with, hew my shield with, strong
though he is in evil deeds" (ll. 681-683). But Beowulf needs to
invoke his rage as well, since Grendel is himself enraged. Lest we
fail to note the power of that rage from reports of his previous
attacks, it is called unmistakably to our attention when Grendel
enters Heorot on the night he encounters Beowulf. Though the door of
the meadhall is bound fast with iron, "/fyrbendum fst/," it springs
open at the mere touch of his hands, "/syan he hire folmum
(thr)an/." How even a monster of Grendel's power can accomplish
such an act is indicated by the formulaic phrase, "/a he [ge]bolgen
ws,/" "for he was enraged" (ll. 722-723). His extraordinary
strength is generated by his rage. Beowulf therefore must be
enraged, swollen with battle spirit, if he has any chance of
defeating the evil and enraged Grendel.
John M. Hill's essay "Revenge and Superego Mastery in /Beowulf/"
provides an analysis of orality and aggression that is helpful in
understanding the relationship between Beowulf's boasting speeches
and the "swelling rage" that is produced in reaction to the
anticipation of battle fury (Hill 1989
<labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor370115>). Through a discussion of
orality as it explicitly relates to aggression Hill demonstrates the
ambiguity of "good" and "evil" in /Beowulf'/s characters and various
monsters. Beowulf's boasting becomes more than merely the
anti-heroic self-congratulatory speech; rather, it is that weapon
with which Beowulf begins to meet Grendel's aggression. We have seen
Grendel's oral aggression in the context of his cannibalistic
habits; and, as Jaeger points out, powerful speech/acts/ as well as
describes (Jager 1990 <labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor377303>, 845-859).
Hill takes this argument a step further when he claims that by
boasting, Beowulf may have been enacting one of the shape-changing
and shaman-assisted rituals performed by warriors prior to battle
and in order to foreground the possibility for perceiving
monstrosity among the warring feuds [9]
<labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor310759>.
In Beowulf's encounter with Grendel's dam, the emphasis is less on
the pattern of developing rage as preparation for battle and more on
the hero's ability to call upon rage at need. The issue of fairness
is also less directly addressed, but Beowulf's sword and mail coat
turn out to be appropriate means of dealing with the monster's claws
and extraordinarily tough hide; indeed, his sword turns out to be
less than a fair match. Perhaps an initial state of rage is
unimportant since Beowulf must swim into the depths of the mere
"/hwil dges/," "for a great part of a day," a context in which rage
would be both unnecessary and difficult to maintain for so long a
time. But the sea witch finally accosts him and drags him into her
cave. There, able to free his sword, he strikes and discovers her
invulnerability to any ordinary sword. His response to this
situation first emphasizes his self-possession: he is "/anrd, /
nalas elnes lt, // mra gemyndig,/" "resolute, not slow in

courage, mindful of fame" (ll. 1529-1530). He then grabs her by the

shoulder and hurls her to the floor, and, as we might expect, his
ability to perform so great a feat is indicated by the formulaic
phrase we have seen before, "/a he gebolgen ws/," "because he was
enraged" (ll. 1539). Beowulf, in other words, has been able to call
upon the necessary rage when the situation demanded it, and that it
emerges as a product of his self-control is reinforced by its being
described not as an emotional reaction but as following from his
resoluteness, courage, and mindfulness.
This encounter further reveals what might be described as an even
higher level of rage, indicated by forms of the word /hreoh/, which
Klaeber glosses as "rough, fierce, savage, troubled." The witch
immediately jumps up and Beowulf has to call on deeper resources. He
spies a sword hanging on the wall, and now, "/hreoh ond heorogrim/,"
"fierce and sword-grim" as Klaeber glosses it (l.1564), he seizes
the sword and strikes her dead. But /hreoh/ seems to suggest a
feeling stronger than fierceness. The sword Beowulf found was
"/eotenisc/," "made by giants, giant," as Klaeber glosses it, though
perhaps more accurately "gigantic"; it is so massive that no other
man could use it in battle, but it is not magic. It strikes through
the otherwise invulnerable monster in part because of its weight,
but also because being /hreoh/, in a state of desperate rage, gives
Beowulf the strength to wield effectively so massive a sword. Like
Grendel bursting open the door of Heorot with a touch, it is not
only unusual muscle or sinew that accounts for the warrior's
superhuman strength, but rage.
In other contexts as well, the forms of /hreoh/ seem to suggest a
more elemental, savage, and desperate kind of rage than those of
/belgan/. As "/hreohmod/" the word describes the rage Hrothgar feels
(l. 2132) as he begs Beowulf to take vengeance on Grendel's dam
after she killed his favorite retainer. This is undoubtedly the
context for which Klaeber came up with the alternative "troubled in
mind," but such a reading neglects the fact that Hrothgar is a
warrior in the situation of having been mortally offended while
being helpless to accomplish a warrior's moral obligation to exact
revenge. Such a man would not be merely troubled; rather his
frustration would account for the more desperate, even frenetic,
rage he feels, as indicated by "/hreohmod/."
Another form of this word seems to imply a rage that is mindless
when it is applied to the waves, "/hreo wron ya/" (l. 548), that
beset Beowulf in his swim with Breca. And this sense of desperate,
frenzied rage is also attributed to the dragon when Beowulf first
wounds it (l. 2581)--the dragon, already enraged, responds to the
wound with this higher level. The application of this word to
Beowulf, the force of a violent sea, and the dragon, therefore,
reveals that this form of rage, like that denoted by the forms of
/belgan/, implies a natural force that can be employed as a weapon
in the service of both good and evil, either to restore and maintain
or to destroy order. Indeed, it is this extreme rage that enables
the dragon to fatally wound Beowulf.
But Beowulf knows rage well, both its uses for good and its uses for
evil, and it is an indication of the significance of this word that

catastrophic destruction can be seen as the result of divine rage.

Thus in the last third of the poem, when there is no explanation for
the disastrous destruction of his own hall, he fears it may be God's
work.
/a ws Biowulfe broga gecyed
snude to soe, t his sylfes ham,
bolda selest, brynewylmum mealt,
gifstol Geata. t am godan waes
hreow on hrere, hygesorge maest;
wende se wisa t he Wealdende
ofer ealde riht, ecean Dryhtne
bitre gebulge; breost innan weoll
eostrum geoncum, swa him geywe ne waes./
Then to Beowulf the terror was announced,
quickly, in truth, that his own home,
the best of houses, the throne of the Geats,
was melted in fire. Then felt that good man
great agony in his breast, the deepest sorrow.
The wise man thought he had bitterly enraged
the Lord, the Eternal Ruler,
broken the ancient law; his breast surged
with dark thoughts not customary to him. (ll. 2324-2332)
Beowulf believes he must have somehow broken the "ancient law," done
something that "bitterly enraged" God, not simply angered or
offended him, as most translators have rendered it. Nothing less
than divine rage, it seems at this point, could account for the
terrible destruction of his home, his very throne, more literally
his "gift-chair." In addition to revealing one of the many moments
in the text where it is evident that the transition from paganism to
Christianity is indeed a struggle and a battle for cultural
significance and conformity, Beowulf's sense that he has "enraged"
God in this passage reveals a human God who, like the Old Testament
Judeo-Christian God, is capable of wrath. The assumption of God's
goodness and status as "above" anger, rage, or revenge on humans has
not yet entered into the rhetoric of the Anglo-Saxon cosmology.
Rather, God as an early representation of a monotheistic deity,
remains one who has the properties and characteristics of pagan
gods. In this sense, Beowulf's fear of divine rage mimics the
general approach to battle found in classical epics and pursued
throughout the 16th and 17th centuries in epics such as /Paradise
Lost/. In fact, it may be posited that the epic genre depends on a
notion of a God capable of anger.
This possibility inspires dark thoughts, uncustomary feelings to
such a hero, but what is especially significant is that Beowulf
cannot at first respond to this very personal injury with his
accustomed rage precisely because he does not know the source of
that injury. Moreover, since such near apocalyptic devastation might
be an act of God, and, as we have argued, since appropriate rage is
directed against rage that is evil and out of control, rage against
God is certainly inappropriate--in fact, it is just the sort of
response that had characterized Grendel. Beowulf, however, is able
to reflect upon his many good deeds, his fairness to his lords and
kinsmen, his valor in battle, and he finds no basis for guilt [10]

<labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor311050>. Still, he seems paralyzed until

he learns why the dragon burned his lands. Only then can he act:
"/Gewat a twelfa sum, / torne gebolgen, // dryhten Geata / dracan
sceawian/," "Then went the king of the Geats, deeply enraged, one
among twelve, to find the dragon" (ll. 2401-2402). Beowulf, in other
words, is able to act decisively in this crisis only when he is able
rationally and appropriately to invoke, direct, and release his rage.
The appropriateness of Beowulf's rage is clear because his actions
are a response not only to the dragon's destructive act, but to its
rage. When the theft from the dragon's hoard was first described, we
were told "/t sie iod (onfand), // b(ig)folc beorna, / t he
gebolge(n) ws/," "that the people, the neighboring folk, discovered
that [the dragon] was enraged" (ll. 2219-2220). In the subsequent,
more detailed narration of that theft and its consequences, the
dragon, as it seeks the thief, is described as "/hat and hreohmod/"
(l. 2296), indicating its frustrated rage and desire for revenge,
much like Hrothgar's at the death of his most loyal retainer. The
poet goes on,
/Hordweard onbad
earfolice, o t fen cwom;
ws a gebolgen beorges hyrde
wolde se laa lige forgyldan
drincft dyre./
The treasure-keeper waited
impatiently until evening came.
The barrow-guardian was swollen with rage,
the hated one wanted vengeance by fire
for that precious vessel. (ll. 2302-2306)
Acting in a manner consistent with evil (the dragon is variously
described as "/eodsceaa/" (l. 2278), "/gusceaa/" (l. 2318),
"/mansceaa/" (l. 2514)--the last of these epithets is twice applied
to Grendel (ll.712, 737), once to his dam (l.1339)--meaning "scourge
or enemy of humanity") the dragon expresses its frustration by
venting its rage indiscriminately. Beowulf, therefore, sets out to
meet the dragon in a state of rage equal in power to the dragon's,
but produced through control.
Signifying the difference between good and evil, human and animal,
Beowulf's control is evidenced in his speech. Whereas the dragon's
breath emits only noxious poison and fire, Beowulf's breath must
produce proper language in the form of a battle speech. Before the
actual encounter, therefore, as he stands on the seashore before the
dragon's barrow, a more elaborate spiritual and emotional
preparation remains necessary to achieve a controlled, consciously
ordered, and full state of rage. Speaking to his men, he remembers
the many trials, sorrows, and battles of the past which he has led
and survived. Beowulf's boasting, his "/beotwordum/" (l. 2510),
reaches a kind of culmination in his declaration that he will still
"/fhe secan, // mru fremman,/" "seek battle, win fame" (ll.
2513-2514). Nevertheless, a continuing part of his boast is his
explanation of why he is fully armed.

/Nolde ic sweord beran,

wpen to wyrme, gif ic wyste hu
wi am aglcean elles meahte
gylpe wigripan, swa ic gio wi Grendle dyde;
ac ic r headu-fyres hates wene,
[o]rees ond attres; foron ic me on hafu
bord ond byrnan./
I would not bear a sword,
a weapon against the worm, if I knew how
I might otherwise grapple honorably
with that dragon, as I did once with Grendel;
but I think of [the dragon's] hot battle fire,
of [his] breath and venom; therefore I have on me
shield and coat of mail. (ll. 2518-2524)
He can still boast, in other words, that he is meeting this foe, as
he did Grendel, on equal terms. Having completed his boast, Beowulf
is almost prepared for battle, but not quite. His spirit is not at
full battle readiness. He is not yet in a state of full battle rage,
that intense emotional state which will indicate his readiness to
meet the dragon, for we know the dragon is enraged--indeed, once
aroused, in a continuing state of rage much like Grendel. Beowulf's
rage, however, emerges in a more disciplined manner. He leaves the
beach, moving toward the dragon's barrow as his rage swells to its
apex of battle readiness, and the passage describing this
transformation is among the most stirring in the poem. It begins,
/Aras a bi ronde rof oretta,
heard under healm, hiorosercean br
under stancleofu, strengo getruwode
anes mannes; ne bi swylc earges si!/
Arose then with his shield the famed warrior,
brave under his helmet, bearing his battlemail
under the stone cliffs, the lone man,
tested in his strength; this was no cowardly trip! (ll. 2538-2541)
As we noted earlier, Donaldson most frequently translates the forms
of /belgan/ as some form of "swelling," swelling with rage or
swelling with anger. He does so apparently in part in deference to
Klaeber, whose gloss includes the note, "Orig. 'swell'; cp.
/b(i)elg/ 'bag'"[11] <labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor311453>. This
translation not only reflects the word's root, it captures something
of the way in which rage properly fills the warrior. The poet
likewise suggests this by beginning this consummate description of
the fully ready warrior with the word, "/Aras/," which functions as
an elaborate pun: as he strides forth toward battle, he rises in the
sense of moving up from the beach to the cliff face and the entrance
to the dragon's cave; he not only raises his shield, as the
Anglo-Saxon warrior customarily does before battle, he rises with
it; and finally and most important, Beowulf rises up inwardly,
swells in courage and strength as he completes that final step of
soaring into full battle rage. This becomes an ascent into a
spiritual and emotional state that explodes in a burst of energy:

/Let a of breostrum, a he gebolgen ws,

Weder-Geata leod word ut faran,
stearcheort styrmde; stefn in becom
heootorht hlynnan under harne stan./
Then from his breast, for he was swollen with rage,
the king of the Geats let a word go forth,
shouted strong-hearted; his voice rose,
the ringing battlecry under gray stone. (ll. 2550-2553)
To translate the familiar phrase, "/a he gebolgen ws,/" as "for he
was angry," as so many have done, almost travesties an emotional
state that is significant and fundamental to the text and its
analysis, indeed, to the Beowulf poet and his audience we believe,
so magnificent. As there is preparation of arms for battle, there is
preparation also of the mind, the spirit, thus reinforcing a
hierarchy of mind and body. Having thoroughly constructed his rage,
Beowulf's readiness bursts forth in a verbal challenge to the Dragon
(an act that also declares the value of proper rage): "/stearcheort
styrmde/" reinforces the fact that this cry surges up "/of
breostum/," from the warrior's breast or heart, which this culture
believed to be the center of emotions.
In his essay cited earlier, Eric Jager (1990
<labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor377303>) explores the poetic analogy
between Beowulf's breast and the dragon's barrow, showing how
Beowulf's cry "is reified into a weaponlike object traveling
independently away from its source in the warrior's chest," a cry
analogous to "the dragon's utterance [which], of course, /is/ a
weapon" (Jager's emphasis). This analogy, he argues, is further
"complemented by a psychological [analogy]: the fact that Beowulf
speaks in anger (/a he gebolgen ws/), as though his pectoral
/word/ expresses this anger, is figuratively represented as the hate
that his utterance stirs up in the barrow" (Jager 1990
<labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor377303>, 850-851). Jager's analysis is
further supported and extended by our reading of Beowulf's cry as
carrying with it a force that matches the dragon's fiery roar;
Beowulf's response from his heart or chest is, however, a force not
of anger but of battle rage. Moreover, Beowulf's "anger" does not
"stir up" the dragon's hate--the dragon is already enraged; rather
Beowulf's cry represents psychological and spiritual weapons meeting
just prior to the physical encounter, rage meeting rage.
The pattern we have seen of distinguishing between appropriate and
inappropriate displays of rage in Beowulf and the monsters
respectively is further developed in incidents that contrast
Beowulf's behavior with that of other human beings. Such incidents
more clearly reveal the impact of appropriate and inappropriate rage
on the social order. As we suggested earlier, the most inappropriate
contexts in which the warrior might fly into rage, those most
threatening to the social order, are in company with his own kin or
hearth companions, especially in his own meadhall. It is in just
such contexts that the negative side of this kind of rage is
repeatedly revealed in the poem. Interkin conflict, especially
kinslaying, is in fact a constant topic. Unferth is known to have
killed two brothers, the commonness of which is suggested by its

being little more than a mild embarrassment to him. Wealhtheow is

worried about her nephew Hrothulf opposing her son Hrethric's
succession, which in fact will be the source of internal division
that finally destroys the Scylding dynasty of the Danes. Among the
Swedes, Onela's nephews rebel against their uncle, a conflict only
one of the nephews will survive. Another manifestation of interkin
conflict emerges as a result of marriages arranged to settle feuds.
This tactic is, of course, based on the expectation that people will
be less likely to fight with their own kin, an expectation which is
treated more with irony than anything else in the poem. Beowulf
asserts (ll. 2028-2032) that marriages to settle feuds are rarely
successful, and the examples that emerge bear out his judgment. In
the past the marriage between Hnaf's sister and Finn failed to make
peace between Danes and Frisians, although that between Onela and
Hrothgar's sister seems to help maintain peace between Swedes and
Danes. Nonetheless, Hrothgar's Heathobard son-in-law Ingeld will
attack and burn Heorot.
An example of destructive internal conflict not involving kin occurs
in Hrothgar's use of the ancient Danish king Heremod as an example
of what he hopes Beowulf will never become. Heremod "/breat
bolgenmod / beodgeneatas/," "killed in rage his table companions"
(l.1713), and thereby brought down on his people slaughter and
destruction. The sole reason given for his rage is "/him on ferhe
greow / breost-hord blodreow/," that "in his spirit his heart grew
bloodthirsty" (ll.1717-1718). Indeed, his name, which translates as
"battle-spirited," suggests in this context that a state of mind
appropriate in battle came to pervade his being. His rage, in short,
was uncontrolled and therefore as little motivated and as mindlessly
destructive as Grendel's.
In fact, viewed in terms of this problem of uncontrolled rage,
Grendel is much less a monster than simply an extreme example of the
very human problems of the poem's warrior culture. Grendel lives in
a kind of exile, sharing in Cain's punishment: "/feor forwrc . . .
mancynne fram/," "driven far . . . from mankind" (ll.109-110), for
what the poet calls a "/fhe,/" "feud" (l.109). This word can apply
to conflicts between peoples, but at least as often and more
tragically it is applied to those between companions and kin, a
situation not at all uncommon among northern European warriors.
Indeed the exile is a character type who appears frequently in
northern European epic and saga, long recognized in the critical
literature as well (Brown 1989 <labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor342419>).
Sometimes he is a survivor of a people whose lord has died, like
Deor, or one all of whose people have died, like the warrior
in/Beowulf/ who hid the treasure that the dragon will find. More
often the exile is a man who has fallen out with his own people
because of some kind of feud. That feud may be politically based,
like the rebellion described in /Beowulf /against the Swedish king
Onela by his nephews, or it is occasioned by the exile having killed
one or more of his fellow warriors. Textual examples of the latter
type of inter-kin or civil feud consistently reveal that the exiled
character is so because he could not control his rage. Grettir the
Strong, the subject of the Norse saga by the same name, is an
especially good example of the latter kind of exile; he typically
ends up killing several of the hearth companions of anyone who hosts
him.

Sometimes, most tragically, exile is occasioned by the warrior's

having killed his own kin. The /Beowulf /poet reminds us of this
kind of situation briefly when Hrothgar's herald first greets
Beowulf and his men, noticing respectfully that by the look of them
they have come, "/neallas for wrcsium, / ac for higerymmum,/"
"not as exiles but as greathearted men" (ll. 338-39). Grendel,
however, /is/ such an exile, and one whose separation from the human
community, the social order, is rooted not simply in his behavior,
but in his ancestry: his kinship with Cain links him with the first
murder, the archetypal act of kinslaying and a clear intersection
between the moral systems of Christianity and northern paganism.
Moreover, it is because Grendel is the embodiment of uncontrolled
rage that his rage is so extreme and seems so little motivated: it
is directed against Hrothgar's people, we are told, in response to
the light and sounds of joyful feasting and poetic song coming from
Heorot. However, Grendel's rage existed long before he noticed those
lights and sounds; they become a special magnet for his rage because
they and Heorot embody the joys of comradeship and social order from
which his rage and God's consequent anger, "/Godes yrre/" (l. 711),
have made him forever exiled. Directed against Heorot, Grendel's
uncontrolled rage will continue unabated for years until it succumbs
to the heroic form of rage displayed by Beowulf. It should be no
surprise, therefore, that Grendel is "/(ge)bolgen/," "enraged" (l.
723), as he enters Heorot for what will be the last time. It is also
in keeping with his function as the type of uncontrolled rage that
he, an exile, commits his depredations within a meadhall, and in so
doing violates order enough to make all the inhabitants of that hall
themselves, at least for a time, exiles.
The thematic pattern of contrasting appropriate rage in battle and
inappropriate rage in social contexts is especially important in
that it anticipates the later transformation, as Elias describes it,
of the feudal nobility "from a class of knights into a class of
courtiers" (Elias 1982 <labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor344535>, 2:20).
This transformation is first adumbrated in /Beowulf/ in the hero's
exchange in Hrothgar's court with Unferth. There rage is conspicuous
by its absence. A less self-controlled, less intellectually adept,
less socially aware and courteous warrior would have responded to
Unferth's challenge, which borders on outright insult, with
violence, but not Beowulf. He maintains his dignity and his temper
and defeats Unferth verbally, a performance that wins Hrothgar's
approval and Unferth's grudging respect. Indeed, Hrothgar's praise
of Beowulf after his conquest of Grendel could apply as well to his
handling of Unferth: Beowulf's achievement is not only in his
"/bld,/" his "power, glory, or renown" (l. 1703), but because he
"/geyldum healdest, / mgen mid modes snyttrum,/" "holds [that
power] steadily, with wisdom of spirit" (ll.1705-1706). This is
praise that Hrothgar directly relates to Beowulf's restraining from
inappropriate rage when, a few lines later, he uses the contrasting
example we noted earlier of Heremod, who did not control his power,
but killed his table companions in rage, defiled, in effect, his own
court. The true warrior seeks, in contrast, to maintain the
meadhall, this early version of a court, as a center for civilized
discourse. In other words, Hrothgar is lecturing on the rudiments of
courtly behavior. Courtliness is, of course, presented in a limited
sense meaning here avoiding drunkenness and suppressing one's rage

in social contexts along with cultivating one's capacity for rage in

order to employ it appropriately in battle. As such it embodies the
special sense of social responsibility imposed on the warrior gifted
with great strength and skill, a responsibility that Beowulf has
clearly accepted and internalized.
The importance of Beowulf's courtly behavior, as well as the problem
of its lack in most warriors in these Germanic and Scandinavian
warrior cultures, is suggested again in one of Beowulf's dying
boasts about what is evidently a rare virtue, that he can die happy,
"/foram me witan ne earf / Walend fira // mororbealo maga, /
onne min sceace // lif of lice,/" "For the Creator of men cannot
lay to my charge the heinous murder of kinsmen, when life departs
from my body" (ll. 2740-2742). By then Beowulf's physical vigor has
gradually diminished with age, but his awareness of social order and
his resolve to maintain that order have never diminished, have
indeed been practiced resolutely and continuously throughout his
life. His courtly virtues had also been demonstrated earlier when
Beowulf, the ideally loyal warrior, supported his kinsman by
refusing the throne after Hygelac's death, even when it was offered
by the queen herself, committing himself to backing the succession
of his cousin Heardred, Hygelac's son. Beowulf serves also as the
example for avoiding internal violence on a broader scale than among
kin. Earlier in this second half of the poem, in language that
recalls Hrothgar's comments about Heremod, the poet praises Beowulf
for "/nealles inwitnet / orum bregdon // dyrnum crfte, / dea
ren(ian) // hondgesteallan,/" "not weaving nets of malice for others
in secret plots, preparing the death of companions" (ll. 2167-2169).
The point is made again a few lines later, applied to unpremeditated
crimes:
/Swa bealdode bearn Ecgeowes,
guma guum cu godum ddum,
dreah fter dome; nealles druncne slog
heorgeneatas; ns him hreoh sefa,
ac he mancynnes msta crfte
ginfstan gife, e him God sealde,
heold hildedeor./
So Ecgtheow's son showed himself,
a man famous in battle for good deeds,
acted with [good] judgement; never, drunken, did he slay
his hearthcompanions; not his was the savage spirit,
but, fierce in battle, he guarded that greatest strength,
the ample gift that God gave him. (ll. 2177-2183)
Beowulf has clearly followed Hrothgar's advice, maintaining the
wellsprings of his rage for use in battle while restraining it among
his kin, his friends, and his allies. Here too the language of the
text reveals contrasting forms of rage: (1) the savage spirit,
"/hreoh sefa/," which can lead to the slaying of one's hearth
companions and which Beowulf did not display except in the fitting
context of that desperate moment with Grendle's dam, and (2) the
battle-fierceness, "/hildedeor/," which is appropriate in battle and
which Beowulf amply displayed. Moreover, the language of these three
passages, describing what Beowulf is not, so aptly describes what
both Heremod and Grendel are that the monster is again revealed as

the archetypal exemplar of uncontrolled rage. This view of rage also

helps us understand the poet's view of the order of Anglo-Saxon society:
/Metod eallum weold
gumena cynnes, swa he nu git de.
Foran bi andgit ghwr selest,
ferhes foreanc. Fela sceal gibidan
leofes ond laes se e longe her
on yssum windagum worolde bruce!/
The Creator rules all
human kind now as he ever did.
Therefore this understanding, mind's forethought,
is everywhere best: much shall he experience
of love and hate who long here
in these days of strife endures the world. (ll. 1057-1062)
The world of this poem's warrior culture is one of love and hate,
one in which strife is endemic, war is as much a part of life as
peace, and conflicts all too often can be settled only with
violence. It is a world therefore in which the cultivation of the
capacity for rage is both a necessity and a danger, a subject for
glorification and for admonition, as well as an example of what
Elias describes as:
the earlier sphere, where violence is an unavoidable and
everyday event, and where the individual's chains of dependence
are relatively short . . . .The life of the warriors themselves,
but also that of all others living in a society with a warrior
upper class, is threatened continually and directly by acts of
physical violence; thus measured against life in more pacified
zones, it oscillates between extremes. (Elias 1982
<labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor344535>, 2:236)
This is a world in which the wise warrior and leader is obliged not
only to restrain his rage, but also to call upon it at need. It is
this capacity, so clearly exhibited in /Beowulf/, that makes him
anomalous, or better, uniquely heroic.
The poem however is tragic, depicting a world dependent on a heroic
ideal that could not be maintained beyond the life of that hero. And
here again Elias helps us understand why. The process of
civilization, as he describes it, is a complex one in which economic
and political forces move toward strong and stable central
monopolies of power. These enjoin stricter forms of control that
limit the savage joys of that earlier sphere, controls that are
subsequently rationalized, moralized, and finally internalized
through processes of socialization into self-control, which in turn
feed back into the civilizing process. But that is a process that
paradoxically requires leaders less scrupulous and more ruthless
than Beowulf, more concerned with exerting and expanding power over
others rather than the kind of self-mastery exhibited by Beowulf.
Thus Beowulf fails to effect any lasting change on his society.
Indeed, Beowulf's self-control is amply demonstrated throughout the
poem, while his lesser control over others, which we might call a

political more than a personal weakness (though the text does not
seem to present it as a weakness in Beowulf), is demonstrated in his
reluctance to assume the throne after Higelac's death and in the
lack of support he receives from all his retainers except Wiglaf in
his final battle.
Finally, the central significance of the forms of /belgan/ in the
poem is further demonstrated by the extent to which the translation
of this word bears on some of the major debates that have occupied
scholars for the last century. Translating it as we have, Beowulf
emerges as an unmitigated hero, not the decadent king marred by
hubris imagined by many readers. His death can only be conceived as
a failure if one superimposes Christainized versions of classic
Greek vices onto the pagan warrior culture that Beowulf exemplifies.
All warriors must die sooner or later, and dying in battle or as the
direct result of battle is in warrior cultures the best way to go;
the fact that it happens so late in the life of a warrior as active
as Beowulf is only more grounds for seeing this king as exemplary.
What he lacks for us is perhaps the kind of lasting impact on his
culture that we have come to expect of epic heroes since Aeneas.
This is not so much a matter of weakness in the hero, however, as a
condition of the moral and historical vision of the poet and his
culture. His is a world characterized by change without any ultimate
direction, either historical or escatalogical, except the change
embodied in seeing in the past an epic grandeur forever lost.
The idea of cultivating a spirit of violent destructiveness, even
temporarily, indeed of glorifying those who achieve that spirit,
seems to run more deeply counter to Christian morality than simply
killing. It managed to survive in this transitional piece--indeed
its survival in a transitional piece is precisely what makes its
treatment anomalous--but it became an idea ignored or suppressed in
most subsequent literature as Christian values displaced pagan
ones--Bertran De Born's twelfth century song "In Praise of War" is a
rare and unsettling example of an ecstatic response to battle that
bears some kinship with battle rage. The /Beowulf /poet, however,
achieves an even rarer balance between the epic's admonitory theme
about the control of rage and its glorification of appropriate rage,
a balance which subsequent European culture abandoned as it
suppressed the vision of rage as a positive attribute.