Students reenact the death of Beowulf and the response of his warriors
Thursday
A major blessing of this blog has been getting to know superb English teachers around the country and around the world. These include Glenda Funk, Dana Huff, Ruth Arseneault, Leslie Healey, and the author of today’s guest post, Carl Rosin.
Carl left a software engineering job to become a teacher and has won various local and regional awards along with PLATO’s national Philosophy Teacher of the Year award for 2014-15 (Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization). He is currently serving on the National Humanities Center’s Teacher Advisory Council. At the end of the essay I link to other guest columns Carl has written.
By Carl Rosin, English Teacher, Radnor High School
If a friend admits to considering self-harm, or to being abused, and implores you to keep the secret, what is the act that will make you loyal? To act to protect?…or to keep the shared secret?
I hope the high school students I teach will never have to face this situation, but I sadly acknowledge that they probably will. We all must decide what to do when obligations conflict.
This blog’s eponymous hero, Beowulf, has provided material for investigations into many “better living” topics over the years, but I mourn the fact that many readers of Beowulf have only read far enough into the great poem to know of the hero’s epic battles with Grendel and Grendel’s mother. They miss out on the final battle and the intervention of the very appealing character Wiglaf.
Professor Bates’s columns about Wiglaf are some of my favorites: in one, he says that President Obama called upon us to be Wiglaf. Another discussed the humanity in the Pixar film Up. When my British & Modern Literature seniors and I addressed Beowulf’s final battle recently, we looked at how the young Geat nobleman Wiglaf faced the deeply serious issue about how to respond to his own set of contradictory obligations.
Beowulf, feeling the responsibility of kingship and suffering from a hubristic pursuit of glory, has ordered his select team of leading lieutenants (thanes) to hang back while he — although he is in his 70s — does battle with the dragon that has been ravaging Geatland. Beowulf says, in the Heaney translation,
Men at arms, remain here on the barrow,
Safe in your armor, to see which one of us
Is better in the end at bearing wounds
In a deadly fray. This fight is not yours,
Nor is it up to any man except me
To measure his strength against the monster
Or to prove his worth. (2529-2535)
The dragon surges to the advantage, and Beowulf’s men-at-arms, already standing aside as per his orders, now flee. In Wiglaf’s heart, however, “Sorrow welled up” (2600).
Wiglaf’s speech to his fellows is the poem’s greatest piece of rhetoric. He reminds them of how much they owe their great king while gently avoiding calling them cowards for fleeing. He hopes that their better values will overwhelm their fear. Wiglaf appeals to their sense of responsibility and nobility as well as hinting at potential shame:
And now, although
He wanted this challenge to be the one he’d face
By himself alone…now the day has come
When this lord we serve needs sound men
To give him their support. Let us go to him,
Help our leader through the hot flame
And dread of the fire. As God is my witness,
I would rather my body were robed in the same
Burning blaze as my gold-giver’s body
Than go back home bearing arms.
That is unthinkable, unless we have first
Slain the foe and defended the life
Of the prince of the Weather-Geats. (2642-2656)
His peroration fails to dispel their fear. One can imagine them rationalizing that they are only doing what their king demanded of them. Wiglaf, on the other hand, runs to Beowulf’s aid, in violation of the king’s orders, and fights alongside him. Although Beowulf has taken a mortal wound, together they defeat the sky-plague.
Like all great literature, the poem reenacts profound human questions, thereby infusing them into the reader’s mind. What if your friend or your child or your student implores you to keep his or her secret but you know that it may be dangerous to do so?
In a way, this “decision” is easier for me: we teachers are mandatory reporters, which means that we must report any situation that may indicate danger to a student, specifically with regard to abuse or neglect. In fact, most teacher training suggests that the mandate is even broader. When I have been asked to keep something private, I try to make it clear up front that I will not be able to do so if I fear that the student asking may be in danger, from others or self. I always want to create — to have already created, in our ongoing relationship —the trust that has led the student to open up and ask for help.
It is not necessarily the same for students. The poem gives us a lot to consider with regard to values: generosity (good leaders are “ring-givers” and “gold-givers,” while hoarding is a mark of flawed character); fairness (Beowulf’s inclination to fight the unarmed Grendel similarly unarmed pays off: he doesn’t fall into the trap of trying to use weapons against a monster charmed to be impervious to them); and loyalty (as shown in Beowulf’s deference to King Hygelac’s heirs, among many examples).
Loyalty is a double-edged sword: in many cultures, including student culture, to breach trust among the peer group is thought to doom one’s reputation. We’ve all heard about the power of “Stop Snitching” and “Bros Before Hoes,” secrecy in fraternities and sororities, and on and on. This article from GreatSchools.org consults a parenting expert, a professor of counselor education, a professor lecturing on moral decisions, and a therapist in describing the complexities that entangle us in these situations. The topic of secrecy has swirled up in several venues recently, in cases as varied as the Catholic Church’s abuse scandal and the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh.
When we discussed Wiglaf in class, then, I wasn’t sure how the seniors would react.
My seniors spoke cautiously but grew bolder as their peers stepped in. One boy said that he would rather have his friend be alive and angry with him than see that friend victimized when something might have been done. Another made the point that the breach of trust may make it less likely for there to be future trust. While his point was logical, a classmate pointed out that keeping the secret a first time may mean that there will be no second chance. A chilling thought.
The “see something, say something” model seemed to prevail, as I hoped it would. But nothing is easy about this very human decision.
It so happens that Wiglaf’s intervention cannot save Beowulf, whose hubris has cost him his life. Blood-loss and the dragon’s poison are taking their toll. Nevertheless, something of value occurs: “That pair of kinsmen, partners in nobility, / Had destroyed the foe.”
“So every man should act,” the poet concludes, adding, “Be at hand when needed.”
One of the most poignant scenes of the poem comes shortly after Beowulf’s inevitable, painful demise. As Wiglaf, exhausted, sits beside Beowulf’s body,
The battle-dodgers abandoned the wood,
The ones who had let down their lord earlier,
The tail-turners, ten of them together.
When he needed them most, they had made off.
Now they were ashamed and came behind shields,
In their battle-outfits, to where the old man lay.
They watched Wiglaf, sitting worn out,
A comrade shoulder to shoulder with his lord,
Trying in vain to bring him round with water. (2846-2854)
Wiglaf no longer holds back on shaming those who might have helped. He even speaks of Beowulf’s own tragic flaw openly, in a way that we would probably find inappropriate were we eulogizing someone who fell after attempting to face a personal dragon on his or her own.
The analogy is imperfect, as are all analogies, but the nobility and heroism of Wiglaf is a beacon that stands at the end of Beowulf. He was willing to be burned in the process of helping his comrade through the blaze of affliction. Thinking back to my student’s concern about discouraging sharing by revealing secrets, perhaps the lesson here is that we sometimes cry for help in coded language. Perhaps we secretly want our friends to intervene.
While it is true in one sense that “the fight is not yours” when the monster is another person’s depression or abusive relationship, our compassion for the ones we love suggests that we can be Wiglafs who help those loved ones defeat terrible foes. We all need “sound men [and women] / To give…their support.”
May we all heed the call to help keep our friends safe.
Other blog essays by and about Carl Rosin
Politically Incorrect Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises
I Sing of Kaepernick Glad and Big
Teaching Integrity (and Walt Whitman) in High School English
#CancelColbert, #CancelMarkTwain
High Schoolers and Great Expectations