Beowulf - Thug Notes Summary and Analysis 

As a medievalist I started laughing so hard at his confusion about the author...”Beowulf...by...uhhhh...” Welcome to the Middle Ages my friends!

Beowulf test tomorrow, of course I had to watch the Thug Notes!

If this guy were a High school teacher, a bet $10,000 he would never have a student pull a "sick day". In fact, they would probably petition to have his class go on longer than normal classes

I'm an English major and this guy literally saves my butt for every reading and comprehension quiz/test/exam!! Bless you!!

Beowulf was a straight up gangsta.

I LOVE THIS MAN!

This is literally how I passed my English test on Beowulf. Seriously I read through the whole thing and I barely had a concept of what was going on. So THANK YOU!!!

I love how we can talk about prose written in old English in an American ghetto slang and still get the point across

I laughed in the face of this book and its 60 pages, mockingly I thought: finally a book that won't take me ages, but then the poem initiated and my ego deflated, "These sentences are longer than anything I've read!" so I tossed it aside and watched this video instead.

Actually, the name Beowulf is a combination of Bee and hunter. Beo is bee in Old English, and Wulf can be Wolf but it can also mean hunter. Thus Bee-hunter, and what animal hunts after bees? A bear. To say man-wolf is ǷER-ƿulf, hence the modern day Werewolf. Wer is man in Old English and Wulf in this case, would mean wolf.

Holy shit...I actually UNDERSTAND Beowulf now!

finally. a channel thats ghetto, educational, and funny at the same time. well done.

What's Beowulf's favourite TV show? How I Met Your Mother *runs away*

"Beowulf by... uh..." ba dum tsss

Shieeeet, ain't nobody fuckin with death. NOBODY.

Not only is this hilarious and entertaining, it's highly educational. You're doing something truly valuable here. Keep it up!

i just really need to point this out but while this interpretation of Beowulf's meaning holds some weight, it's about vikings and how they are most alive when they fight. It's not pride when Beowulf challenges Grendel and Grendel's mother all alone. When he promises King Hrothgar that he can and will kill Grendel it is not only a testament to his vitality but also a promise of how honorable a viking warrior he is by putting his life on the line like that. In that sense, the meaning of the name Beowulf can serve to refer to man's animal characteristics and how the urge to fight until your dying breath is a natural part of life. That is especially true when you take into account the opening verses that describe a viking funeral in which the previous king of the shieldlands gets put into a boat in armor and such, and that describe how honorable the king was in fighting until the very end (which is in essence the meaning of the viking funeral format). Interestingly enough though, the poem was likely written between 800 and 1100 by (a) christian monk(s) and despite that, they do not write it from a perspective that attacks paganism but clearly distinguishes Beowulf's pagan practices from God (there are allusions to God in the poem, that is) and it's especially interesting because the time it was written in was when the vikings invaded what is now the UK.

Could you do the Epic of Gilgamesh next?

Guys tell a "yo momma" joke. Grendel's momma appears to beat the sh*t out of everyone there. Best plot twist ever.

I remember Beowulf being one of my absolute favorite reads in high school.

you're hilarious wisecrack. keep em coming.i also liked your review of Dune.

You've mentioned Nietzsche in a number of these videos, so why not do an episode on something of his? Perhaps "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" or something?

This is some of the coolest, most accurate and deep explanations of classics. and it's entertaining too. Keep it up man.

Thank you so much for allowing us to experience your gift through these different stories. I have a greater understanding of the literature. My son loves to watch you too.

shout out to my English teacher for telling me to watch this

This is literally my college homework assignment. Hands down best educational video I’ve ever watched

40s fo' evvyone! I thought I would die laughing.

For most of the history since we found the poem, people looked down on it--they figured it was something like a medieval Hardy Boys book; a paint-by-numbers style adventure for adolescents. It wasn't until JRR Tolkein wrote "Beowulf and the Critics," defending it as an absolute epic, that people started to take it seriously.

Best summary I've seen yet! I definitely needed a few wisecracks to get through this godforsaken poem.

I loved this story back in high school!!! I remember by whole class and I had to write an essay about it and we had so much fun.

I have been laughing for hours now. Thanks a lot.

This is a dope way of conveying great books, stories and providing solid analysis.

YOU LITERALLY MADE ME PASS THANKS

Thug Notes is seriously the best thing on RU-vid.

This guy needs more followers

I LOVE THIS CHANNEL. BEOWULF MADE NO SENSE UNTIL I WATCHED THIS. THANK YOU!! 👏👏

you make literature even more interesting ! thanks homie ! :D

I just found this channel. This is helpful and hilarious. Love it.

So he's a Medieval Kamina?

thanks thug notes! I was going to ask you to do a video on Beowulf because me high school class is studying Beowulf. so thanks for helping a brother out!

Subtle! Straight away, he tips us off that he's using Seamus Heaney's translation.

yours, and your contribution to literary culture is incredible, you are able to tell in a nice way the ancient masterpieces of history, in my opinion this is the perfect method that all HISTORICIANS AND LITERATORS SHOULD ADOPT, CONGRATULATIONS

It`s a folk epic. It was not written by any single author. It was passed down from generation to generation with each bard adding or taking something away. Then some unnamed bard sorted it out to the point of it being a cohesive narrative, an then some monk wrote it down.

you have no idea how much this helped me. I did not wanted to read the book so I just read summaries off of shmoop. I love that you are doing this I just wish our teachers can let us watch these.

This may be the best thing I've seen on RU-vid since forever.

This is an interesting telling of Beowulf. Bear in mind though that Geatland is pronounced as Yeh-atland. Keep it up. :)

i seriously listened to the first 7 seconds of the first vid of yours that i came across and hit subscribe. im spending all day tomorrow taking in all the epic Thug Notes. thank you for your awesomeness :)

Could you do Sir Gawain and the Green Knight?

Wisecrack you got it goin' on brother! Keep up the good work!

That helped my friend to pass the exams from british literature, thank you!

This man's videos need to be in all the urban schools. Total Lean On Me happening if they had teachers like this man.

i just learned more about this poem than my teacher has taught me in the past two weeks. Thank you kind sir for helping prepare me for my test next week.

Could you do The Canterbury Tales next?

PLEASE do The Metamorphosis! I'd love to hear your take on it!

I could have sworn Beowulf was a kenning for BEAR. Beo- bee, and wulf... is wolf (representing a predator). Or, simply put, a predator of bees. Bears were scary, scary things, and common superstition was that saying its actual name was to invoke its appearance...

Sharing this with everyone I know. Geniusly composed and a VERY helpful review. Thug Notes, you get me "dawg."

Surprised how much I appreciated this. THANK YOU

There are two important inaccuracies in this video which should be addressed. The first is the misconception that Beowulf left any of the Dragon's wealth with his people. Beowulf's military leadership was the only thing keeping the Swedes from invading Geatland, and the poem ends in sadness because it is telling of the end of the Geatish, who either moved to England and assimilated with the Angles/Saxons or were taken over and assimilated into the Swedes. All of the dragon's wealth was sent away on the pyre to keep the Swedish from attaining it, as well as to honor Beowulf's memory. The whole point of being generous with wealth was absolutely correct but that only applies when your kingdom isn't doomed. The poem even mentions how the gold is only symbolically valuable, anyway. The second is the point on the theme of pride in regards to Beowulf fighting Grendel unarmed. Grendel cannot be harmed by man-made metals but nobody thought to fight him unarmed or by slamming his arm in a door because normal people would think trying such things are insane. Beowulf has already been established to have superhuman strength by this point both in narration and his own stories of his exploits. By making a boast and fulfilling it Beowulf is shown in a positive light from the perspective of the narrator, not a negative one. By doing this he is in-tune with the Wyrd, or Fate, and was fated to kill Grendel so long as he went about it the right way. If you don't mind a bit of extra reading, here's an essay I wrote about Beowulf back in University that goes into detail on the historical and cultural contexts of the poem between the period in which it was thought to first have been composed and when the version we are familiar with was written down: docs.google.com/document/d/1DrwvXpDRVcxatzvY53oA6iQ5sxQvAmtIZphwbir8fMI/edit

Honestly, I love your videos and analysis of literature. As someone who studies Beowulf for a living, I want to share this with my students. Just beautiful; however, I would like to point out that the tightest translation of "Beowulf" is not "man wolf," as that would literally be "werwulf" in Anglo-Saxon (man/wer+wolf/wulf), the word from which the modern "werewolf" derives. Rather, the tightest translation of "Beowulf" is literally "bee-wolf," meaning "bear" (literally, a wolf who hunts bees - as in for honey - think Whinnie the Pooh). I hope this comment has been academically enlightening, keep the videos coming!

In one adaptation of beowulf I read, it implied that beowulf said he hunted down grendel's mother, but she actually seduced him. Later in the story it tells how he actually got her pregnant and she gave birth to the dragon that kills him in the end.

I have always loved your "courses" - you ain't never wrong.

Wait a minute. Beowulf fought Grendel unarmed because the beast was invulnerable to edged steel, and fought the dragon with no backup save Wiglaf because all his other warriors pussied out. In neither case was it about Beowulf being arrogant, this analysis is way off.

Keep the vids coming you are spitting some serious knowledge

Didn't he fight the beast naked just to be fair?

Think i just stumbled across the most interesting educational channel EVER!

I read beowulf in 7th grade and it seemed very short... it was only like 108 pages

You never cease to amaze me. I'd love to see your take on Othelli, The Count of Monte Cristo, or The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

I look forward to Tuesday now! You are my favorite subscription. I would love to hear a whole reenactment done by you.

"when it comes to laying that anglo-saxon poetry game" is the most beautiful start to a sentence i could ever imagine.

This is the best summary I found!

I love your vids! You are and awesome teacher!!! Your presentations are engaging, entertaining, and educational!! I've gotten fresh perspective on many of my favorite classics!! I'll be using your work to inspire my students!! Much Love!! Stay Awesome!!

My Tuesdays are again complete - wonderful!

Awesome. Just awesome. You, brother, are a superhero. I couldn't PAY my grandkids to read Beowulf. It is indeed counterculture these days to prize learning and intellect. Your subversion, here, is masterfully done. I am n awe of you.

you deserve waaayy more subscribers!!

Always look forward to your videos! Which one are you doing next? Also, would you be willing to do Flowers for Algernon?

this is possibly the best thing ive ever watched

One of the best parts of the week.

I miss these

Best channel on youtube, ya hear!

Man, I'd love to see you review A Series of Unfortunate Events. The books are super sad, but SO BRUTAL AND GREAT

Welcome back, I missed you!!! Now for the requests: Animal Farm, Invisible Man, The Scarlet Letter, Macbeth, Othello, The Count of Monte Cristo (books I love) & Moby Dick, The Old Man and The Sea(books I hated). If anybody could make Moby Dick & The Old Man & the Sea interesting it's you blood!! Make it happen playa!!

I may be wrong, but I thought Beowulf cones from the old English words be, meaning bee like the insect, and wolf, meaning foe or enemy, which makes BeoWulf mean bee foe, which is a a kenning for a bear. Bear were a popular symbol for warriors. anyone know if this is true?

Oh man. So glad to revisit TN.

Greatest. Cliffnotes. Ever. +1 for the Canadian Brass in the background.

At least every now and then, I must say, you are pretty darn awesome! I love all your work

You should do more, helps me a bunch. Thanks!

Oh my goodness. My class is actual reading this poem!!!! Thanks TN

Thanks so much for doing Beowulf. I see other great suggestions--. Looking forward to the next one.

Ur of mice and men and animal farm videos has really helped me with my revision for my english exams. Thx bra

You guys should do a thug notes mini-series for some of the tales in the Canterbury Tales

10/10 would recommend this channel

That's what I am reading in English now. Thank you Thug Notes for giving me another perspective on the book.

Greatest intro.

This man helps me learn this stuff. Brilliant!

I deadass just came back to this video in order to figure out how to explain the story to my students...... LMFAO THANKS MAN!

Thank you!! This book was not easy to understand!

There is another explanation for his name: it could be derived from *beww, meaning barley. Old Norse "ulfr", "wolf", is used in poetry as "enemy". Beowulf thus would mean "enemy of the barley", characterizing him someone who could finish large quantities of ale.

I've learned so much about modern English from this video.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed, this was the most pulled-from-all episode yet.

Whyyyyyy haven't more people seen these videos! ? Please keep doing them and perhaps bring on someone good with marketing. This channel and everyone involved deserve far more views/subscribers. Ya hurrred!?