Beowulf and The Intent of Christians to Convert Pagans Into Christianit

Before England was the superpower it is known to be today, it was a small kingdom inhabited by many groups of people over time. First to England came the Celts, then(prenominal) the papists, and then the Anglo Saxons. The Anglo Saxons traveled to England from the northern countries of Germany Norway and Sweden. When they arrived, they brought their gods with them. The Anglo Saxons religion consisted of multiple gods and goddesses and their own view of Heaven and what it would be like. The Anglo Saxons also loved poetry, and they used it to keep track of the muniment of their people. Beowulf is an epic verse form that was past down by the Anglo Saxons from generation to generation. The poem is infused with multiple elements of their pagan religion. However, when they immigrated to England and began to tell the tale of Beowulf, the local inhabitants began to listen and identify their twist on it. Douglas Wilson states Through a heroic poem just about pagans that never mentions C hrist, Beowulf is the opposite of syncretistic compromise. It is written to highlight the treachery as a way of life that afflicted these pagan societies from within, and the greed and undress as a way of life that afflicted them from without (whether they were the marauders of the victims.) (30) In an commence to convert the Anglo Saxons, the Christians of that time changed Beowulf and incorporated many elements of Christianity into the poem. By incorporating elements of Christianity such as portraying Grendel as a descendent of Cain, mentioning the one(a) true deitys name, and portraying the hero Beowulf as a Christ figure, the Roman Catholic Christians hoped to convert the Anglo Saxons to Christianity and instill in them the power and hope of the one true God. First, the Christian... ...nd phrases into the characters mouths, and relating the hero, Beowulf, to the Christian hero, Jesus Christ, the Roman Catholic Christians hoped to convert the pagans to Christianity and put out them toward what they believed to be the one and only truth, Jesus Christ. Works CitedBeowulf. The Longman Anthology British Literature. Ed. David Damrosch and Kevin J. H. Dettmar. quaternate ed. Vol. 1. New York Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. 36-107. Print. Bloom, Harold. Blooms Guides Beowulf. New York Infobase Publishing, 2008. Print.Fry, Donald. The Beowulf Poet. Englewood Cliffs Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968. Print. Streissguth, Thomas. Understanding Beowulf. Farmington Hills Lucent Books, 2004. Print.The MacArthur playing field Bible. Ed. John MacArthur. Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2006. Print. Wilson, Douglas. The Anglo-Saxon Evangel. Touchstone. July/August (2007). 30-34. Web.