Beowulf and The Faerie Queene are two completely different stories yet show many striking similarities between the two. Beowulf was written around 700 A.D. by an Anglo-Saxon poet. Like most of the poems written by Anglo-Saxons, the author is unknown to this day. Because of the length of time the Beowulf story has survived, of the 40,000 lines originally created, only about 3000 lines of the epic poem still remain. The original piece of literature is housed in a single medieval manuscript based in the British Library in London, England. The manuscript has no date or time period whatsoever on it so its age had to be estimated only by the way the literature was written. Many people believe however that Beowulf was written by two different authors…show more content… Both Beowulf and the Redcrosse Knight demonstrate heroism by following quests to defeat a terrible monster. Although Redcrosse had a bit more difficult time defeating his monster, he still demonstrated the same principles of Beowulf such as his immense strength and bravery. Also, the plot line of each story is very similar in that both protagonists are sent to fight and kill one enemy, but end up fighting two more along the way. Beowulf was originally sent to the mead hall after hearing news about Grendel to see if he was truly a challenge for him. After killing him, Grendel's mother is outraged but Beowulf ends up killing her as well. Finally, as a payment to the Danes, Beowulf fights and kills the dragon that was disturbed by the thief although, this challenge proved to be fatal. In The Faerie Queene, the Redcrosse Knight is originally sent by Gloriana to slay a dragon terrorizing the kingdom of Una and her parents. The first thing he ends up fighting though is a beastly monster named Error in his own cave. Redcrosse goes along his way but encounters Sans Joy who he kills as well for Duessa. Eventually, Redcrosse encounters the original dragon he was meant to slay, although he almost ends up getting killed twice, and defeats it. Both stories carry this same characteristic of fighting monsters they were never originally supposed…show more content… In the story of The Faerie Queene, multiple women characters are introduced to the readers such as Una, Duessa, Gloriana, and Lucifera. Each of these women also play an important part in the story further developing the plot for the Redcrosse Knight. However, in the story of Beowulf, the only women that were introduced were Grendel's Mother and Wealhtheow, Hrothgar's Queen. Grendel's Mother is really the only one of the women that created a more interesting plot because she was a fiendish monster. The participation of the women in each story was drastically different possibly because of the different time periods they were originally written. Because of Beowulf being written in the Old English period, women were not as prominent as they were when The Faerie Queene was written which was around the Middle Age period. Beowulf and The Faerie Queene despite being written possibly a millennium apart show evident similarities in each other yet still exhibit obvious time period distinctions which definitely does not affect that these two stories will continue to be studied a long time from
