Edit: Ok, less dickish. He goes to Denmark because Hrothgar needs help with Grendel. It's not Beowulf taking a vacation to hang out with his bros when he suddenly gets jumped by a monster. And I do think the Hero's Journey concept is loose enough to to not be particularly useful.
Last edited by Tangerine on September 11th, 2025, 18:17, edited 2 times in total.
It was hyperbole. Yes, he technically does go somewhere, but so does everyone all the time - it doesn't fit the ostensible pattern of the Hero's Journey unless you believe in a completely fatuous Hero's Journey that applies to anything and means nothing. Beowulf's "journey", while floridly described, amounts to: he gets on a boat and crosses the Kattegat. Nothing happens during this process and it occupies two stanzas.
You're doing exactly the kind of academic pilpul that I'm saying underlies the whole Hero's Journey concept: "well there's a hero and he journeys, so see, I was right". Okay, that's fine if that's what you want it to mean, but it means the idea is stupid.
Edit: Ok, less dickish. He goes to Denmark because Hrothgar needs help with Grendel. It's not Beowulf taking a vacation to hang out with his bros when he suddenly gets jumped by a monster. And I do think the Hero's Journey concept is loose enough to to not be particularly useful.
Okay, fine, then we agree the idea is stupid.
Last edited by Stack of Turtles on September 11th, 2025, 18:25, edited 1 time in total.
It was hyperbole. Yes, he technically does go somewhere, but so does everyone all the time - it doesn't fit the ostensible pattern of the Hero's Journey unless you believe in a completely fatuous Hero's Journey that applies to anything and means nothing. Beowulf's "journey", while floridly described, amounts to: he gets on a boat and crosses the Kattegat. Nothing happens during this process and it occupies two stanzas.
You're doing exactly the kind of academic pilpul that I'm saying underlies the whole Hero's Journey concept: "well there's a hero and he journeys, so see, I was right". Okay, that's fine if that's what you want it to mean, but it means the idea is stupid.
Edit: Ok, less dickish. He goes to Denmark because Hrothgar needs help with Grendel. It's not Beowulf taking a vacation to hang out with his bros when he suddenly gets jumped by a monster. And I do think the Hero's Journey concept is loose enough to to not be particularly useful.
Okay, fine, then we agree the idea is stupid.
My original point was that just about any adventure story can be made to fit the Hero's Journey format and that it's not just something in modern storytelling, since it was created to fit lots of classical stories. You said it doesn't apply to Beowulf while agreeing with the point that the framework is broad enough that it can be made to apply. Am I missing something here?
Edit: Just saw your edit.
Last edited by Tangerine on September 11th, 2025, 18:42, edited 1 time in total.
It was hyperbole. Yes, he technically does go somewhere, but so does everyone all the time - it doesn't fit the ostensible pattern of the Hero's Journey unless you believe in a completely fatuous Hero's Journey that applies to anything and means nothing. Beowulf's "journey", while floridly described, amounts to: he gets on a boat and crosses the Kattegat. Nothing happens during this process and it occupies two stanzas.
You're doing exactly the kind of academic pilpul that I'm saying underlies the whole Hero's Journey concept: "well there's a hero and he journeys, so see, I was right". Okay, that's fine if that's what you want it to mean, but it means the idea is stupid.
Edit: Ok, less dickish. He goes to Denmark because Hrothgar needs help with Grendel. It's not Beowulf taking a vacation to hang out with his bros when he suddenly gets jumped by a monster. And I do think the Hero's Journey concept is loose enough to to not be particularly useful.
Okay, fine, then we agree the idea is stupid.
My original point was that just about any adventure story can be made to fit the Hero's Journey format and that it's not just something in modern storytelling, since it was created to fit lots of classical stories. You said it doesn't apply to Beowulf while agreeing with the point that the framework is broad enough that it can be made to apply. Am I missing something here?
Edit: Just saw your edit.
Well, in the actual original conception of the "monomyth", it definitely does not apply to the story as a whole, most obviously since Beowulf dies at the end, but also because he doesn't journey into a land of "supernatural wonder", but a land that's culturally closely related to and essentially no different from his homeland. He fights the Grendel family in Denmark and the dragon years later in Geatland; both lands are simultaneously mundane and supernatural, as the ancients viewed their world in general, and the journey is merely down to the fact that the monsters show up in different places at different times. Beowulf also doesn't really gain anything spiritually from fighting the monsters in Denmark, so just applying the monomyth to that part doesn't work out very well: although he becomes king of the Geats afterward, sure, he's already a celebrated hero among them at the start, exactly the kind of person they would proclaim as king anyway. The original idea of the monomyth has to be tortured into irrelevance to fit any particular story because it's idiotic.
