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Definition of Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story. Foreshadowing can be achieved directly or indirectly, by making... read full definition
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story. Foreshadowing can be achieved... read full definition
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the... read full definition
The Dragon (Lines 2200–2323)
Explanation and Analysis—The Last of His Race:
After an unnamed man steals a golden goblet from the hoard of a dragon, the dragon attacks the Geats, killing many and destroying Beowulf’s home. In a scene suffused with pathos that foreshadows the difficulties that the Geats will face following Beowulf’s death, the narrator explains that the hoard was assembled by a man who was the last member of his race after a series of disastrous wars. The narrator reports the man as saying:
Now hold thou, earth, since heroes may not,
what earls have owned! Lo, erst from thee
brave men brought it! But battle-death seized
and cruel killing my clansmen all,
robbed them of life and a liegeman's joys.
None have I left to lift the sword,
or to cleanse the carven cup of price,
beaker bright. My brave are gone.
And the helmet hard, all haughty with gold,
shall part from its plating. Polishers sleep
who could brighten and burnish the battle-mask;
and those weeds of war that were wont to brave
over bicker of shields the bite of steel
rust with their bearer.
The speaker of this passage is the final survivor of a doomed race which fell to “battle-death.” As his people’s last living representative, he collects their treasures and hides them in a barrow, which later becomes the dragon’s hoard. Here, the man’s emotional lament evokes pathos as he expresses the pain of outliving all of his friends and family members. Additionally, his description of the wars that claimed the lives of his compatriots foreshadows events that occur after Beowulf’s lifetime. As the narrator notes, the Geats suffer greatly after the death of their King, as they return to fighting their old enemies, the Frisians, the Swedes, and the Franks. This passage, then, mournfully registers the threat of civilizational collapse.
Related Themes:
