Polo

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itical and military--are defined in reference to the conventional reciprocity of the feud despite their obvious opportunistic features. (3) Feuds function in the poem as a sort of trope, conveying to the interactions of the characters tragedy and irony (78).
Day also claims that "although there are mechanisms for ending the feud, such as political marriage or the payment of wergild, the focus in the poem is most often on the tragic failure of such efforts at closure" (77). In this way, the Beowulf poet is presenting society as incredibly fragile and able to be maintained only through constant conflict, since other methods of arbitration, such as intermarriage, are shown throughout the text to fail.

The first half of Beowulf deals with Beowulf's defense of the mead hall Heorot, a symbol of civilization that we are informed is fated to be destroyed by fire. But Heorot was nonetheless considered a great accomplishment that would ensure Hrothgar's fame:

And he resolved to build a hall,
a large and noble feasting-hall
of whose splendors men would always speak,
and there to distribute as gifts to old and young
all the things that God had given him -
but not men's lives or public land.
Then I heard that tribes without number, even
to the ends of the earth, were given orders
to decorate the hall. And in due course
(before very long) the greatest of halls
was created. Hrothgar, whose very word was counted
far and wide as command, called it Heorot. (Beowulf 68-79)
This preoccupation with a physical structure meant to persist through the ages is a major symbol of civilization. Civilization is something visibly separate from nature (such as a large building) and it's something that persists, if only in memory. It is within Heorot that the great acts of civilization take place: prepared food and drink are consumed, hospitality is shared, and stories are told. The stories are of particular interest because, while Heorot is de...