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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
In four pages this paper contrasts and compares these two epics in a consideration of how in each revenge is a legal and culturally accepted form of justice and how the backgrounding of the legally sanctioned payment of compensation in Njal’s Saga affects the reader’s view of violence in Beowulf. Four sources are listed in the bibliography.
Page Count:
4 pages (~225 words per page)
File: TG15_TGbeonjal.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
was the prevailing attitude, particularly as it pertained to family. Carolyn Anderson observed in her analytical article No Fixed Point: Gender and Blood Feuds in Njals Saga, "Blood linked
identity, which their male relatives must support by credible threats and the actual exercise of physical force" (Anderson 421). In some instances, kinship extended beyond blood relatives; it existed
in promises of revenge that were expected to be honored should the situation arise. Law and justice, in essence, supported the view that receiving a pound of flesh in
retaliation for murder was perfectly acceptable. In two of the most famous works from this time - the anonymously written epics Beowulf (written between the eight and eleventh centuries)
and Njals Saga (written in the thirteenth century) - revenge and the law are the primary themes that link each tale. They reveal much about the pagan era and
the ethical codes that were in place. In Beowulf, the Danish King Hrothgar enlists the services of the warrior Beowulf, who resides not in Denmark but in the Geatland (Sweden).
However, despite the fact they are not blood kin, Beowulf agrees to fight the social outcast creature Grendel in retaliation of his murderous attacks upon Hrothgars sleeping warriors.
Hrothgar makes it clear that Beowulfs obligation is based not on ties of blood, but of friendship and duty to honor his fathers promise: "Thy fathers combat a feud enkindled
/ when Heatholaf with hand he slew among the Wylfings; his Weder kin / for horror of fighting feared to hold him. / Fleeing, he sought our South-Dane folk, /
over surge of ocean the Honor-Scyldings, / when first I was ruling the folk of Danes, wielded, youthful, this widespread realm, / this hoard-hold of heroes" (Anonymous 19). Beowulf
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