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Kevin Pauls
Mrs. Bradley
AP Literature 12
4 November 2016
How to Read Literature Like a Professor in Beowulf
The story of Beowulf tells the tale of a heroic mans life. This man was capable of saving
the Danes at the same time as repaying a former debt and managed to die the honorable death of
a warrior at battle. This man is Beowulf. He is the one who carries the story along and is part of
all major events that occur throughout this piece of literature. How to Read Literature Like a
Professor, written by Thomas C. Foster, outlines the ways that literature can be interpreted and
the common elements that can be found in any literature. Beowulf represents How to Read
Literature Like a Professor in its structure and characters, politics, presence of a godly figure,
and its interpretation.
To begin with, Foster discusses how a vast majority of literature is modeled similarly in
terms of structure and characters in chapter five of How to Read Literature Like a Professor,
similar to the structure of Beowulf. He establishes the argument that there is truly only one story,
whether it may be The Epic of Gilgamesh, Jack and the Beanstalk, or even an episode of The
Simpsons. Every time a new story is created, an author may try to alter the pattern of what
always reoccurs. It is ultimately up to the author of each story to individualize this recurring
pattern and make it their own. This is the same for Beowulf. This story has the same patternized
characters of the good guy and the bad guy, and it generally has the same plot as any other
story. The good guy, Beowulf, is the hero of the story and will prevail over the bad guys:
Grendel and Grendels mother. At the same moment of defeating the bad guys, he saves a target

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person or group of people, which in this case happens to be Hrothgar and the Danes. Beowulf
receives gifts for saving the Danes and is seen as the mighty warrior that he is. As the hero of the
story, Beowulf dies his respectable death, fighting off the dragon with Wiglaf and being
poisoned by the dragons blood.
Following up chapter five, Foster explains in chapter thirteen that every work of literature
has its own politics to a certain extent. Some politics that are found in stories are biased towards
certain ideals or tied towards controversial issues that do not play out too well in the story. Other
politics can include the unfortunate realities of the world, including the way that it addresses the
rights of people and basic human conflicts between one another. In Beowulf, politics are
definitely present throughout the whole story. Beowulf is introduced in the story as a powerful
member of the Geats. When Beowulf hears about the dangers of Grendel towards the Danes, he,
in his leading role, takes the Geats down to Denmark to help out. Hrothgar, the leader of the
Danes, listens to the accomplishments of Beowulf and determines that he is the right man to kill
Grendel. Beowulf has to convince Hrothgars men to stay behind on the night of Grendels death
due to the fact that Beowulf ultimately needs them out of his way. Beowulf says that the Danes
must stay back to protect the women and children, therefore giving them a role of importance
that did not interfere with Beowulfs goal. After killing Grendel, Beowulf was seen as an even
higher force towards Hrothgar, making Unferth jealous, and Beowulf is now fitting more into a
leading position amongst both the Danes and the Geats. When it came time to slay the dragon,
Beowulf and Wiglaf were the only people brave enough to do it. As Beowulf was dying, he
made Wiglaf the new leader of the Geats, and none of the Geats could deny the declaring of the
new king since none of them were there. This action was an award of respect from Beowulf to
Wiglaf, the one person who remained by his side to support him all the way through his death.

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In chapter fourteen, Foster discusses how pieces of European and American literature
have a Christ figure who appears to be much more godly than the rest of the characters. We all
live in a Christianized culture where many influences of these religious ideas may appear in
stories in the form of a heroic character or in portions of the plot. In Beowulf, the godly figure is
the heroic Beowulf himself. He is the leader of his own group of men and makes the decision to
help out another group. As the Geats go to assist the Danes in the creation of safety from
Grendel, Beowulf is the first person to decide to fight without any weapon, purely utilizing his
strength over any man-made tool. During the fight in Heorot hall, Grendel realizes how
immensely strong Beowulf is and actually tries to run away and save his own life, but Beowulf
rips Grendels arm off. Grendel then bleeds to death. When Beowulf finds out that Grendels
mother is now avenging her sons death by attacking the Danes, he knows that he must come to
the rescue and successfully defend them once again. In order to now kill Grendels mother,
Beowulf must go very deep into the now-purified lake to a place where no man has ever been.
After killing various sea monsters on his swim down and holding his breath for several hours, he
finally reaches the spot where Grendels mother and Grendels dead body reside. When fighting
Grendels mother, he breaks Hrunting, Unferths sword, against her tough hide and eventually
kills the mother with her own sword. He carries Grendels severed head, the hilt of Hrunting, and
Grendels mothers sword all the way back up the lake, an amount of weight so extreme that it
takes the manpower of four Geats to carry Grendels head alone back over to the Danes.
In chapter twenty-five, Foster talks about how readers have to make sure that they read
any piece of literature in the way that the author intended it to be read. The way that Foster
suggests to do this is: Dont read with your eyes. This phrase means that it is effective to start
reading a story without set expectations when going into it. Each story will always have its own

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individuality of being somewhere between the world in which we live in and a completely fictive
world. Readers should do their best to analyze literature from the authors own understanding of
the topic with the same tones and historical elements of the time period. The epic of Beowulf is
placed in the 6th century, taking place in northern Europe. This is a time when many tribes were
present and they each had their own rulers. The author of this story seems to have had a great
respect for the character of Beowulf as he is the one who ultimately saves the Danes and still
manages to have his warriors death. The author gives the monsters an awesome amount of
strength, making Beowulf appear evermore honorable at the fact of being able to defeat these
powerful beasts. Beowulf is intended to be read with an understanding of these notions of the
author and with a perspective as if it were in the 6th century.
To summarize, the epic of Beowulf manages to follow the guidelines listed in How to
Read Literature Like a Professor fairly accurately. Beowulf does follow the standard of how
stories share a similar plot and characters. It also has a certain level of politics that helps move
the story along. The Christ figure in Beowulf is Beowulf himself, being the hero of the Geats and
Danes by killing Grendels family. The story also has its own level of how it should be
interpreted by the reader based on how the author portrays it to be analyzed. Beowulf is an
accurate representation of what is discussed in How to Read Literature Like a Professor.

Andrew Kang- Content Cop


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