Afternoon of Alterity - Nazareth College

seed of monstrosity within themselves. This sentiment is echoed byJames Phillips who observes that “…humanity experiences itself inthe encounter with the monstrous as both familiar and intolerable”(Phillips 47).The characteristics that arguably render Grendel most terrifyingand memorable though, are his wild and uncontrollable murderousrage and his unethically violent and cannibalistic nature. ThroughoutBeowulf, the poet describes how Grendel, provoked by the soundsof human celebration in the Danes’ mead hall, ruthlessly andrepeatedly attacks the Danes under the cover of darkness, drinkinghis victims’ blood and devouring scores of sleeping men, “feet tofingertips” (Liuzza 76). Oswald remarks on the monstrousness ofGrendel’s method of murder, writing, “Grendel is not just here tokill but to consume; this is a hall for feasting, and he does just that.But Grendel’s eating is more than ravenous, and even more thanbestial. He devours every part of this body, as the poet tells us, eventhe hands and feet—such excess reveals indiscriminate consumption”(Oswald 76). There is no indication given in the text that Grendelhas any moral or ethical misgivings about his murderous andcannibalistic rampage. As Jennifer Farrell aptly notes, “Grendel isall action and no reflection” (Farrell 934). To medieval and modernimaginations alike, this is a critical component of Grendel’s characterthat marks him as “other” in relation to humankind, and defineshim as monstrous.The intricate complexity of Grendel’s monstrous identity canbe even more fully illuminated through an examination of thediffering ways in which Grendel is named and described throughoutvarious translations of Beowulf. Due to the fact that the Old EnglishBeowulf manuscript must be translated into modern English inorder to be understood by a broad contemporary audience, theimpression that a reader receives of Grendel can differ in significantways depending upon the translation of Beowulf that he or shemaura whitman 5