When Worlds Collide Essay -- Culture Anglo Saxon Essays

When Worlds Collide The world of Beowulf and that of modern America have some interesting similarities. The Anglo- Saxon belief in "wyrd," or fate, is alive and well in the 21st century. Like the Anglo- Saxons, our culture regards the crime of killing one’s own kin or family to be the most heinous of all. Americans love entertainment just as much as the Anglo- Saxons of Beowulf’s time did. Of course, with our modern technology like movies, television, and the Internet, we are allowed to experience many more methods of enjoyment than medieval people were able to enjoy. However, their culture is remembered through portions of our popular culture. Within its pages, Beowulf contains the notion of â€Å"wyrd.â€Å" This is the Anglo- Saxon concept of fate, the idea that everything is destined or planned to happen. The Anglo- Saxon people believed that everything was predetermined and that all their fates were already fixed. Beowulf says to Unferth that â€Å"Fate often saves an undoomed man when his courage is good,†(p.12) meaning that fate may save a warrior if he has true courage. In modern- day America, this idea of fate is similar to the idea of having ‘an angel on your shoulder.’ Many of the people who survived the September 11th tragedy did so by missing their train that day or getting struck in traffic. One gentleman who worked high up in the first tower surfed down twelve flights of stairs as the building collapsed and survived with only a broken leg. Some believe that it was just chance or a random thing, but many believe that it was fate that saved them, the idea being that some other force had pl ans for these people and that their time on this earth was not yet over. In Beowulf’s time, the w... ... Lord of the Rings, originally a trilogy of books written by J.R.R. Tolkien, pays respect to the ancient culture and ways of the Norse people, with their traditions of oral story telling and epic quests embedded within the story’s plot. These similarities show where some of our roots as Americans come from. Our culture is a massive patchwork quilt of various cultures and ethnicity. There are strong strains of this ancient culture running through our modern society. Beowulf is only one example of the Anglo- Saxon literature we possess today, but from it, we obtain more of what their culture was and we keep some these values alive in our own ways. Works Cited Associated Press. â€Å"Doctor: Yates felt she had no choice.† http://www.msnbc.com/news/709713.asp 5 March 2002. Howe, Nicholas ed. Beowulf: A Prose Translation. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002.