The Warrior and the Witan: Searching For the Culture of Wisdom In Beowulf
type: CreativeWork
description: In the poem Beowulf, the role of the community's formal council, the witan, has not been adequately examined. This group should be juxtaposed with Beowulf who, as a warrior, exhibits the values of individualism, while the witan embodies the values of the community. These communal values are represented, throughout the poem, as the values of knowledge and constitute a poetic sphere of behavior, morality, and society that can reasonably be called the culture of wisdom.
abstract: In the poem Beowulf, the role of the community's formal council, the witan, has not been adequately examined. This group should be juxtaposed with Beowulf who, as a warrior, exhibits the values of individualism, while the witan embodies the values of the community. These communal values are represented, throughout the poem, as the values of knowledge and constitute a poetic sphere of behavior, morality, and society that can reasonably be called the culture of wisdom.
author: Hardaway, Reid Fuller
keywords: Arts and Humanities, English Language and Literature, Beowulf, Coastguard, Hrothgar, Warrior, Wisdom, Witan
date published: 2011-01-01T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T04:37:34Z
provider: University of South Carolina
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of South Carolina