Grendel

All Music Guide:

Dutch electronic body music (EBM) group Grendel debuted in 2000 with a self-released CD featuring the song "Strangers," which became an minor underground dance hit in parts of Western Europe. The German label NoiTekk in turn signed Grendel and released Inhumane Amusement (2001), followed by an EP, End of Ages (2002). Grendel's next album, Prescription: Medicide (2004), was an underground hit, especially in the Netherlands; the album was released in the U.S. by Metropolis as well as in Europe by NoiTekk. Grendel enjoyed another hit with their subsequent EP, Soilbleed (2005), which included a hard-hitting cover of the German club smash "Kernkraft 400" by Zombie Nation. In the wake of this success, Grendel left NoiTekk and signed with Infacted for the release of Harsh Generation (2007), again released by Metropolis in the States. At this juncture, the group was comprised of Jos Tucker (aka VLRK), Marc Martinez (M4RC), and Marco Visconti (MRKO).

Wikipedia:

Grendel is one of three antagonists, along with Grendel's mother and the dragon, in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf (AD 700–1000). Grendel is usually depicted as a monster, though this is the subject of scholarly debate. In the poem, Grendel is feared by all but Beowulf.

Story[edit]

The poem Beowulf is contained in the Nowell Codex. As noted in lines 105–114 and lines 1260–1267 of Beowulf, Grendel and his mother are described as descendants of the Biblical Cain. Beowulf leaves the Geats in order to find and destroy Grendel, who has been attacking the mead-hall of Herot, killing and eating anyone he finds there. Grendel attacks the hall after having been disturbed by the noise of the drunken revellers. One cryptic scene in which Grendel sits in the abandoned hall unable to approach the throne hints that his motives may be greed or revenge. After a long battle, Beowulf mortally wounds Grendel by ripping his arm off. Grendel dies in his cave under the swamp. There, Beowulf later engages in a fierce battle with Grendel's mother, over whom he triumphs. Following her death, Beowulf finds Grendel's corpse and removes his head, which he keeps as a trophy. Beowulf then returns to the surface and to his men at the "ninth hour" (l. 1600, "nōn", about 3 p.m.). He returns to Heorot, where he is given many gifts by an even more grateful Hrothgar.Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).

Contents

Scholarship[edit]

Tolkien[edit]

In 1936, J.R.R. Tolkien's Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics discussed Grendel and the dragon in Beowulf. This essay was the first work of scholarship in which Anglo-Saxon literature was seriously examined for its literary merits—not just scholarship about the origins of the English language, or what historical information could be gleaned from the text, as was popular in the 19th century.

Debate over description[edit]

During the following decades, the exact description of Grendel became a source of debate for scholars. Indeed, because his exact appearance is never directly described in Old English by the original Beowulf poet, part of the debate revolves around what is known, namely his descent from the biblical Cain (who was the first murderer in the Bible).

Debate over Grendel's nature[edit]

Some scholars have linked Grendel's descent from Cain to the monsters and giants of The Cain Tradition.

Seamus Heaney, in his translation of Beowulf, writes in lines 1351–1355 that Grendel is vaguely human in shape, though much larger:

Heaney's translation of lines 1637–1639 also notes that his mother's disembodied head is so large that it takes four men to transport it. Furthermore, in lines 983–989, when Grendel's torn arm is inspected, Heaney describes it as being covered in impenetrable scales and horny growths:

Peter Dickinson (1979) argued that seeing as the considered distinction between man and beast at the time the poem was written was simply man's bipedalism, the given description of Grendel being man-like does not necessarily imply that Grendel is meant to be humanoid, going as far as stating that Grendel could easily have been a bipedal dragon.

Other scholars such as Kuhn (1979) have questioned a monstrous description, stating:

O'Keefe has suggested that Grendel resembles a Berserker, because of numerous associations that seem to point to this possibility.

Sonya R Jensen argues for an identification between Grendel and Agnar, son of Ingeld, and suggests that the tale of the first two monsters is actually the tale of Ingeld, as mentioned by Alcuin in the 790s. The tale of Agnar tells how he was cut in half by the warrior Bothvarr Bjarki ('Warlike little Bear'), and how he died 'with his lips separated into a smile'. One major parallel between Agnar and Grendel would thus be that the monster of the poem has a name perhaps composed of a combination of the words gren and daelan. The poet may be stressing to his audience that Grendel 'died laughing', or that he was gren-dael[ed] or 'grin-divid(ed)', after having his arm torn off at the shoulder by 'Beowulf', whose name means 'Bee-Wolf' or 'Bear'.Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).

Grendelsmere[edit]

In Worcestershire there was a pond called Grendelsmere near Abbots Morton during the Old English era. The name is likely to be an allusion to Grendel from Beowulf. The pond is now gone.Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).

Grendel in film, literature, and popular culture[edit]

Grendel also appears in Harold E. Varmus' speech that he gave for winning the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on oncogenes at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 1989. Harold E. Varmus compared a cancer cell to Grendel as a cancer cell is "like Grendel, a distorted vision of our normal selves".Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).