What does Beowulf Look Like, and How Is He Depicted in the Poem?
What does Beowulf look like? Is he a mythical hero who possesses godly features? In the poem, he is described as a tall young man with extraordinary strength, capable of slaying a monster with his bare hands. Read on to discover more about his appearance and other features!
What Does Beowulf Look Like?
The poem suggests he is a tall young man with a commanding presence. He was presumably good-looking, according to Anglo-Saxon standards at that time. When he was first introduced in the poem, he was around 20 years of age, in the prime of his youth, and immensely strong.
Beowulf’s Description in the Poem
It was stated that the strength of his grip was equivalent to that of thirty men. Most of his descriptions in the poem refer to his actions rather than his physical appearance. The poet balances the human and heroic aspects of his character. He is of noble birth, wise, and a famous fighter, notable for his strength and daring actions.
What Are the Physical Features of Beowulf?
In the poem of Beowulf, he is drawn into the minds of the readers as the hero, with a strong physique, heroic appearance, height, and noble posture. The poem talks about how Beowulf was young and courageous, as they were seen in his physical appearance.
Strong Physique
Beowulf appears to be a handsome strong prince, whose muscles were physically apparent. His arms were muscular and his legs were strong enough that he wouldn’t get tired. His chest was bulk and his body, overall, showed bravery and courage.
After arriving in the country of the Danes from Geatland, he is initially introduced to the reader as he steps off his ship while exuding a strong presence. Drawing up his noble ancestry and setting him in the same historical and literary context as other Anglo-Saxon kings and heroes takes up a significant portion of the opening of Beowulf.
The heroism he displayed during these two periods of his life may be distinguished with clarity, and Beowulf characteristics with evidence were clearly shown. His bravery as a mature monarch is different from that of his youthful self, who battled unrestrainedly for glory and fame.
The majority of the narrative takes place when Beowulf is still a young man establishing himself before he becomes king. The poem recounts his youthful experiences, including his contests with other men, and his brave acts, including employing his extraordinary strength and endurance to battle sea monsters.
Height
When it comes to the appearance of Beowulf, the anonymous writer has written nearly 3,000 lines of poetry, only to explain how heroic Beowulf’s features are. Nonetheless, Beowulf was 6 foot 5, which puts up to 195 cm.
Weight
From what is known through literature and the poem of the warrior, Beowulf’s weight was nearly 245 lbs, which is 111 kgs. Keeping in mind that the reason why Beowulf was heavy and bulked, physically was that his body was packed with strength and muscles. Hence, the volume of muscles took over the weight of his body, that is why he was heavily built when it came to his posture.
Nobel Posture
The reason why Beowulf has a noble posture is not only because he was born from a noble family, but because of his posture. His height and weight together gave him confidence and strength in himself, where he was able to broaden his shoulders, and proudly walk toward King Hrothgar and present himself.
His posture played a role in his confidence in two ways: to find confidence in himself and to let others be in awe of how he held his body proudly. The reason why Beowulf is confident in himself is that, first and foremost, he was born in a noble family, where all his needs are satisfied.
Secondly, others see his posture and hence he has gained confidence because he is tall and he is very handsome. As Beowulf walks into the king’s castle, all the members were speechless, because there was a handsome tall warrior entering.
Young and Courageous
Being young and courageous is one of the physical traits of Beowulf since he was handsome, young, and confident in himself. His youth was present, in different ways: the vibrance of his skin, the rich color of his hair, and the liveliness present in his soul. These showed in him and how he walked, how he was ready to defeat the monster that scared the nation.
Hair Color
Beowulf comes from the northern side of Germany, from the Geatlands. He shares Germanic genes, which means his hair and facial hair are in lighter shades, meaning he was ginger or probably blond with some darker hair lights in his hair. In addition to this, he had somehow wavy long hair, not straight hair.
Eye Color
His eyes were in the shades of dark blue, hence he shared northern genes. The notion of his eye color is given to us in the poem’s ending when Beowulf died and his loyal servant saw him when he was old and wounded by the dragon in the third battle.
Muscular
The muscles of Beowulf were shown through his proud posture. He had a bulky body with a strong grip on his heirloom sword.
Beowulf was muscular, and this aspect was shown when he swam in the competition against Breca who doubted his swimming skills. Beowulf’s muscles were strong enough to help him swim and cut to the ocean for seven days since the race was for seven days. The latter shows how strong his muscles were, somehow he was superhuman, to have swam for seven days long and back without getting tired, since his muscles were big and strong.
Furthermore, Beowulf was able to defeat Grendel, As he has a magic spell on him, no weapons or armor can kill him and stop him until Beowulf arrived. Beowulf fought him bare-handed and managed to rip off Grendel’s arm, fatally wounding him.
Heroic Posture
Even though the Danes had their hero, who was Sigemund or Sigmund the son of Wael, who in many respects resembles Beowulf. He is regarded as a mythical hero for the Danes. His story has been told and passed down from generation to generation. However, Beowulf had more of a heroic posture than Sigmund.
How he had a heroic posture was how he stood strongly, bravely, and undefeated. His height along with his physical strength was the reason why by a single sight, he was noticeable as an epic hero.
Old-age Beowulf
He was still muscular, having a strong posture, however, in his old age, he had gotten smaller and shorter in his height. Since he had the confidence as a young hero that he can defeat monsters, when he got old, as a king, he still wanted to be in the battle.
Hence, the enraged dragon sets fire to the Geats, and Beowulf, who was already old during this time, stood by his sworn oath to protect his people and the kingdom. Together with Wiglaf, the only thane left to support him after the others fled, they were able to defeat the dragon. In the end, Beowulf was mortally wounded and declared Wiglaf to be his successor. He was ritually burned and buried on a barrow overlooking the sea.
FAQ
What Did Grendel Look Like?
Grendel was the first monster that Beowulf defeated. He was a huge monster, whose body was covered with hair in the color of black and dark brown. Grendel, somehow, looked like a huge monkey but had the body posture of a human.
Grendel had yellow-colored teeth, which internally had blood patches on the inside.
He has a human-like form. He has a gloomy figure with dark-colored eyes and is considerably bigger than any other human. Evidence of this is when his severed head was brought to the Danes, at least four men were needed to lift it. However, despite his various animal characteristics and monstrous appearance, he seems to be directed by vaguely human emotions and instincts.
He is an outcast who longs to be reintroduced into human civilization after being exiled to the swamplands. He is envious of the good relationships of the people in Danes. It can be assumed that his rage against the Danes is fueled by loneliness and jealousy.
Who Is Grendel’s Mother?
Grendel’s mother was the second monster that Beowulf defeated. After Grendel had been killed, his mother came to avenge him. In the poem, she represents a mother who has gone insane from her loss and who’s ready to do anything to get back at Beowulf for her poor son’s death. For this reason, some readers have seen her as an embodiment of ancient Northern European society’s tendency toward unending blood feuds.
As regards her appearance, she possesses fewer human qualities than her son. She is also a humanoid creature similar to her son, except in the likeness of a woman.
In addition, her attack is explained by her desire for vengeance, as she is struck with grief, rage, despair, and love for her son. Her attack differs from that of her son in that, rather than attacking and killing multiple people, she only targets one Dane, Aeschere, the king’s closest advisor. She took her son’s severed arm before fleeing. She tried to kill Beowulf by tricking him into following her to her underwater cave, but Beowulf succeeded in killing her as well.
Conclusion
In the epic poem, Beowulf, the description of the main character refers more to his background, capabilities, and qualities than his physical appearance. Let us summarize what we have discovered about what Beowulf looked like.
- He was described as a tall young man with a commanding presence. His stance clearly showed that he was of noble descent.
- He was first introduced to the readers when he arrived in Denmark to help get rid of the terrifying monster. Beowulf’s arrival was greatly celebrated, and he was admired for his bravery and immense strength.
- Beowulf embodied many Germanic heroic traits, including loyalty, honor, decency, and pride. He might have started off with a self-centered motivation for fame and glory, but he matured to be a wise and good leader.
All epic heroes are depicted to have great physical attributes that set them apart from the rest, but the most important thing that true heroes possess is the ability to risk their lives to protect others, and Beowulf greatly demonstrated this in the poem.
