| In Beowulf, the warrior and the king fulfill specific roles of the community. The authoritative center of the Danish people, Hrothgar presides over the gift-giving ceremony and recounts the famous "sermon." Yet the king does not have the resources to defeat Grendel. Beowulf is a warrior with the necessary strength to overcome the monster, but his behavior is potentially reckless or even destructive. Furthermore, the audience is compelled to evaluate Beowulf's legacy based on his transition from warrior to king. To make this evaluation, observers in the poem's audience must establish specific standards regarding these communal—and competing—roles. In other words, the audience has to define what it means to be a warrior versus what it means to be a king. The audience is expected to do the same with a third communal group, the witan. As a group of diplomats, they seek peaceful resolutions and exhibit the values of diplomacy and negotiation. They likewise persistently fail. But the narrator hesitates to condemn this group completely. Through a lexicon of wisdom words, the values of the warrior and the values of the witan are placed in ironic juxtaposition. The values of the witan are represented throughout the poem as the values of knowledge, and they constitute a poetic sphere of behavior, morality, and society that can reasonably be called the culture of wisdom. |
