Premium Content "Malignant by Nature," (137) Grendel as Man's Violent Impulse
By Chris Mays - November 25, 2002
"In peaceful times the warlike man sets upon himself." The poem "Beowulf" illustrates the violent, primitive reality of the truth in Nietszche's aphorism. The monster Grendel plays a symbolic role as the primordial, inalienable instincts that exist on the fringes of human civilization whose existence is ignored and whose presence is desperately…
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