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What is the role of treasure in Beowulf ?
In our culture, preoccupation with material goods usually connotes shallowness, and
the pursuit of riches is often seen as incompatible—or at least difficult to reconcile—with
our moral convictions. In
In
The kings of
Finally, treasure also symbolizes the contradictory feelings the Geats and Danes have
toward death, a constant presence in this dark, brutal era. Though the poet writes from an
explicitly Christian perspective, the Geats and Danes seem to lack a notion of a divine
afterlife. In this world, human existence remains limited to the mortal lifespan. However,
people have the opportunity to achieve some kind of afterlife by accruing wealth, prestige,
and glory while they live: Owning significant treasure increases the likelihood that one’s
name and reputation will live on after death. At the same time, the Geats and Danes realize
that treasure remains earthbound, unable to accompany its owner into the hereafter. Both of
these notions figure into the Scandinavian funeral ritual of sending a king off to sea in a
burning ship filled with treasure. The more rings, swords, and coats of mail piled upon the
ship, the greater the king’s glory; however, those riches eventually burn away or become
otherwise lost to the king’s people. In
Amidst the general veneration of treasure, though, come some discordant notes. In one
of the poem’s most mournful moments, the narrator describes “some forgotten person” burying
the collective riches of his entire, equally forgotten race. In this case, the accumulation
of glorious wealth was not enough to gain a lasting legacy, and the treasure only enhances
the survivor’s terrible loneliness, as he is “left with nobody / to bear a sword or to
burnish plated goblets / put a sheen on the cup” (
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