Grendel is one of three antagonists in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf.
Grendel is usually depicted as a monster or a Giant, although this is the subject of scholarly
debate.
In the poem, Grendel is feared by all but Beowulf.
Story The poem Beowulf is contained in the Nowell
Codex.
As noted in lines 105–114 and lines 1260–1267 of Beowulf, Grendel and his mother are described
as descendants of the Biblical Cain.
Beowulf leaves the Geats in order to find and destroy Grendel, who has been attacking
the mead-hall of Herot, killing and eating anyone he finds there.
Grendel attacks the hall after having been disturbed by the noise of the drunken revellers.
One cryptic scene in which Grendel sits in the abandoned hall unable to approach the
throne hints that his motives may be greed or revenge.
After a long battle, Beowulf mortally wounds Grendel by ripping his arm off.
Grendel dies in his cave under the swamp.
There, Beowulf later engages in a fierce battle with Grendel's mother, over whom he triumphs.
Following her death, Beowulf finds Grendel's corpse and removes his head, which he keeps
as a trophy.
Beowulf then returns to the surface and to his men at the "ninth hour".
He returns to Heorot, where a grateful Hrothgar showers him with gifts.
Scholarship Tolkien
In 1936, J.R.R.
Tolkien's Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics discussed Grendel and the dragon in Beowulf.
This essay was the first work of scholarship in which Anglo-Saxon literature was seriously
examined for its literary merits—not just scholarship about the origins of the English
language, or what historical information could be gleaned from the text, as was popular in
the 19th century.
Debate over description During the following decades, the exact description
of Grendel became a source of debate for scholars.
Indeed, because his exact appearance is never directly described in Old English by the original
Beowulf poet, part of the debate revolves around what is known, namely his descent from
the biblical Cain.
Grendel is referred to as a Sceadugenga given that the monster was repeatedly described
to be in the shroud of darkness.
Debate over Grendel's nature Some scholars have linked Grendel's descent
from Cain to the monsters and giants of the Cain tradition.
Seamus Heaney, in his translation of Beowulf, writes in lines 1351–1355 that Grendel is
vaguely human in shape, though much larger: ... the other, warped
in the shape of a man, moves beyond the pale bigger than any man, an unnatural birth
called Grendel by the country people in former days.
Heaney's translation of lines 1637–1639 also notes that Grendel's disembodied head
is so large that it takes four men to transport it.
Furthermore, in lines 983–989, when Grendel's torn arm is inspected, Heaney describes it
as being covered in impenetrable scales and horny growths:
Every nail, claw-scale and spur, every spike and welt on the hand of that heathen brute
was like barbed steel.
Everybody said there was no honed iron hard enough
to pierce him through, no time proofed blade that could cut his brutal blood caked claw
Peter Dickinson argued that seeing as the considered distinction between man and beast
at the time the poem was written was simply man's bipedalism, the given description of
Grendel being man-like does not necessarily imply that Grendel is meant to be humanoid,
going as far as stating that Grendel could easily have been a bipedal dragon.
Other scholars such as Kuhn have questioned a monstrous description, stating:
There are five disputed instances of āglǣca [three of which are in Beowulf] 649, 1269,
1512...In the first...the referent can be either Beowulf or Grendel.
If the poet and his audience felt the word to have two meanings, 'monster,' and 'hero,'
the ambiguity would be troublesome; but if by āglǣca they understood a 'fighter,' the
ambiguity would be of little consequence, for battle was destined for both Beowulf and
Grendel and both were fierce fighters.
O'Keefe has suggested that Grendel resembles a Berserker, because of numerous associations
that seem to point to this possibility.
Sonya R Jensen argues for an identification between Grendel and Agnar, son of Ingeld,
and suggests that the tale of the first two monsters is actually the tale of Ingeld, as
mentioned by Alcuin in the 790s.
The tale of Agnar tells how he was cut in half by the warrior Bothvarr Bjarki, and how
he died 'with his lips separated into a smile'.
One major parallel between Agnar and Grendel would thus be that the monster of the poem
has a name perhaps composed of a combination of the words gren and daelan.
The poet may be stressing to his audience that Grendel 'died laughing', or that he was
gren-dael[ed] or 'grin-divid(ed)', after having his arm torn off at the shoulder by 'Beowulf',
whose name means 'Bee-Wolf' or 'Bear'.
Grendel in film, literature, and popular culture
Grendel also appears in Harold E. Varmus' speech that he gave for winning the Nobel
Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on oncogenes at the Nobel Banquet, December
10, 1989.
Harold E. Varmus compared a cancer cell to Grendel as a cancer cell is "like Grendel,
a distorted vision of our normal selves".
In The Wolf Among Us by Telltale Games, Grendel is magically disguised as a normal-looking
human, yet possesses the attributes in the main story.
Gren has the ability to transform into a white, giant-like creature at will, resembling the
giant in Beowulf.
In Grendel by John Gardner, Grendel tells his side of the epic poem Beowulf.
The novel goes deep into the philosophies of existentialism and nihilism.
Gardner challenges these philosophies by juxtaposing them against the heroic values that take place
in Hrothgar's kingdom, which give people of the kingdom meaning in life.
Grendel is constantly torn between the philosophies he is forced to live by in his isolation,
and the heroic values the people live by.
Gardner proposes that these values are innately human, and though Grendel is descended of
man are unattainable for him due to his exile from society and perceived monstrosity.
The novel was nominated for the 1972 Mythopoeic Award for best novel.
Notes
References Jack, George.
Beowulf : A Student Edition.
Oxford University Press: New York, 1997.
Jensen, S R. Beowulf and the Monsters.
ARRC: Sydney, corrected edition, 1998.
Extracts available online.
----. Beowulf and the Battle-beasts of Yore.
ARRC: Sydney, 2004.
Available online.
Klaeber, Frederick, ed.
Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg.
Third ed.
Boston: Heath, 1950.
Kuhn, Sherman M. "Old English Aglaeca-Middle Irish Olach".
Linguistic Method : Essays in Honor of Herbert Penzl.
Eds.
Irmengard Rauch and Gerald F. Carr.
The Hague, New York: Mouton Publishers, 1979.
213–30.
Tolkien, J.R.R.
Beowulf, the Monsters and the Critics..
First ed.
London: Humphrey Milford, 1937.
Cawson, Frank.
"The Monsters in the Mind: The Face of Evil in Myth, Literature, and Contemporary Life".
Sussex, England: Book Guild, 1995: 38–39.
Gardner, John.
"Grendel".
New York, 1971.
Thorpe, Benjamin.
The Anglo-Saxon Poems of Beowulf: The Scôp or Gleeman's Tale and the Fight at Finnesburg
Oxford University Press.
1885.
Heyne, Moritz.
Harrison, James A. Sharp, Robert.
Beowulf: An Anglo-Saxon Poem, and The Fight at Finnsburg: a Fragment Boston, Massachusetts:
Ginn & Company, 1895.