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Essay / Comparison of the heroes of the Rood's Dream and Beowulf ) at the crucifixion. He also eliminated details from the story which tended to make Christ a pathetic figure, in order to strengthen Christ's identification with the other glorious warriors of Anglo-Saxon poems. When a hero meets death, for example, he is usually surrounded by loyal servants (like Byrhtnoth) or at least one loyal companion, like Wiglaf from Beowulf. The Gospel clearly states that Jesus died ignobly, in the most humiliating way possible, and that his disciples stayed away from Golgotha so as not to be involved with him. The crowd mocked Christ with false reverence. The poet must understand, however, that his audience will not accept a Lord who did not die a radiant death and who was not universally deplored. Rather, he says that “all creation wept, lamented the death of the king – Christ was on the cross.” After Jesus was dismounted, the poet claims that a tomb was carved for him "of shining stone" and that the soldiers sang a dirge for him in the evening. The men came “from afar, running towards the prince”. [165] The rood screen exalts the dazzling beauty of Christ as he died. Very noble, but there is little biblical support for this account. The gold plating and subsequent raising of the cross are also rooted in heroic tradition. Just as Beowulf requested that a "shining mound" be erected in his honor and that the gold in the dragon's cave become as a monument in his honor, so the disciples dig up and gild the jube. The idea that God himself lacked a real tombstone covered in gold was false... middle of paper ...... and most of these works attempt to convince pagans to convert by co-opting the existing value system. Christ appears as a powerful king who will stoically suffer for us and reward us for our piety. Sources cited and consulted Heaney, Seamus, trans. Beowulf: a new verse translation. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000. Mitchell, Bruce and Fred C. Robinson (eds.). “The dream of the rood screen: or a vision of the cross”. A Guide to Old English, 6E. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2002. 256-263. O'Keeffe, Katherine O'Brien. “Heroic values and Christian ethics.” The Cambridge Companion to Ancient English Literature. Ed. Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. 107-125. Wheelock, Jeremy I. "The Word Made Flesh: 'Engel Dryhtnes' in The Dream of the Rood." Notes in English. March 2000, vol. 37 Number 3: 1.
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