Tues. Jan. 19, 2010

If you want to understand the general storyline of Beowulf, it may help to think of it in either 3 or 2 parts. This helped me as I began to read the poem. However, I believe that the piece as a whole is more of an interlacing story. There are so many parts, so many different stories, so many different ways to interpret what goes on in the poem.
Beowulf's story is the connecting thread but throughout the his story, other ones are introduced. Sometimes those interlacing stories come about in the form of the court storyteller or poem reciter, or sometimes they appear as sidenotes like when the author pauses to tell the fate of Hrothgar's daughter. These help to show the traditions and customs of the time period although that was probably not the authors primary reasons for including them. I believe the author also used these to further the plot. Or used them as examples to drive a point home. An example of this is found after Beowulf slays Grendel's Mother and the returns to tell the King. The King is pleased and rewards Beowulf but cautions him to not let the fame and strength go to his head. He uses his own story as an example that no man is invisible.
It's interesting to see how the story develops if you look at it as lots of little stories threaded into a main plot. I think you can glean a lot more from the work as a whole by doing this.