Robert L Schichler (1986)

Heorot and dragon-slaying in Beowulf

In: Proceedings of the PMR Conference, 11, ed. by Phillip PULSIANO. Villanova University, Villanova, Penn., pp. 159-175.

Abstract

The article argues that the heathen people of the poem do not have a sense of salvation at the end -- only a sense of loss and impending doom. But for the audience of the poem, Beowulf's becn, like the solida cacumina status attained by the holy in scriptural exegesis, stands as a monument to the just life and foreshadows fulfilment in a Christian future.