Who is wiglaf in beowulf

Wiglaf is also similar to the character of Horatio in Hamlet —a minor character who is a friend of the hero and who survives to tell the tale to others after everyone else has died. Parents Home Homeschool College Resources. Study Guide. By Unknown. Previous Next. Wiglaf Click the character infographic to download. What's Up With the Ending?

Theme Wheel. Everything you need for every book you read. The way the content is organized and presented is seamlessly smooth, innovative, and comprehensive. The son of Weohstan the Scylfing, and a relative of Beowulf , as well as his most loyal warrior.

In the battle against the dragon , he proves to be the only Geatish warrior with courage even moderately equivalent to Beowulf's. In a way, his valor only serves to underscore just how weak in general and dependent on Beowulf the other Geats have become. Wiglaf rules the Geats after Beowulf dies from wounds suffered in the battle against the dragon, but the narrator makes it clear that Wiglaf cannot match Beowulf as a king and that the Geats will face hard times.

The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance. Facing the Dragon Lines — Instead of helping him, ten of Beowulf's warriors flee. Only Wiglaf of the Waegmundings has courage enough to help Beowulf. Wiglaf has earned the right to rule, not inherited it.

If he is not as mighty as his heroic predecessor, he certainly lacks nothing in courage and loyalty. Previous Beowulf. Next Grendel. Removing book from your Reading List will also remove any bookmarked pages associated with this title. Are you sure you want to remove bookConfirmation and any corresponding bookmarks? My Preferences My Reading List. Beowulf actually undercuts the bond between him and Wiglaf twice in this sequence.

First, he hints that Wiglaf will inherit the war-gear since Beowulf has no biological son, but does not then immediately follow through on that suggestion.

Instead, he makes Wiglaf gather treasure from the dragon's barrow —91 , then gives thanks to God — , and then provides tomb-building instructions —8 before he fulfils the implied promise in the earlier lines and gives his war-gear to Wiglaf since he has no biological son.

Wiglaf seems not be offended by this deathbed slight; he remains seated by Beowulf's corpse, sprinkling it with water in a futile gesture of hope. While scholars have focused on Beowulf's somewhat grudging gift of his war-gear to Wiglaf, none has remarked that Wiglaf does not need the gift, either practically or metaphorically.

Wiglaf has already participated in the iconic ritual of receiving arms from his biological father. Beowulf needs a son to receive his war-gear, but Wiglaf does not need a father or more weapons and armour. He holds his family's ancestral property Once Beowulf is dead, the Geats need Wiglaf more than he needs them.

As noted above, critics have parsed the end of the poem in an attempt to determine whether Wiglaf succeeds Beowulf as king of the Geats, but they have proceeded on the assumption that Wiglaf would want that succession. Hill emphasizes the ways in which Wiglaf's loyalty to Beowulf is that of a retainer to a lord; Wiglaf's loyalty is to Beowulf the individual, not to the Geats as a nation or tribe.

Once Beowulf is dead, that bond of loyalty disappears, since it is a bond of homosocial intimacy rather than one mediated by any larger entity of tribe or group or nascent nation. Throughout the poem, Wiglaf expresses no loyalty to the Geats, who after Beowulf's death will endure the terrors prophesied by an anonymous woman at Beowulf's pyre:. The Geats may see Wiglaf as a potential and attractive new king, but his disappearance at the very end of the poem indicates instead that Wiglaf, like many heroes before and after him, sets off into the unknown.

The poet does not permit the audience a glimpse into his future; that future does not lie within the bounds of the poem's narrative and geography. Part of Wiglaf's attractiveness for the audience is his status as one of the few dynamic characters in Old English poetry. In the course of the dragon fight and its aftermath, he has grown from a young to a mature man. While he does not necessarily become king of the Geats, he certainly assumes command, even if temporarily, once Beowulf is dead. After Beowulf's death, Wiglaf gives orders, with the poet twice using forms of the verb hatan to command to describe his actions.

His order is promptly followed, as an anonymous Geat announces Beowulf's death and predicts future devastation following line Similarly, the Geats act as he orders them to build Beowulf's funeral pyre:. Then ordered the son of Weohstan, the war-brave man, to command the many heroes, the bold-actors, that they from afar bear the firewood.

These two instances of reaction to Wiglaf's speech stand in marked opposition to the reaction to his first speech, which takes place before the dragon fight — In that first speech, he reminds his companions of their debt to Beowulf; they ignore his exhortation, and then they run away. After the dragon fight, in contrast, the Geats do what he tells them.

The poet as well realizes that Wiglaf has changed through the course of the narrative. He has experienced battle against a monstrous creature. He has nursed his king, watched him die, and mourned that loss. All of these activities play into the meaning of his name: Wig-laf, battle-remnant. In these processes, Wiglaf has performed an affective, masculine intimacy that constitutes a distinct alternative to Beowulf's static, heroic masculinity.

Because of his range of emotional experience and emotional growth, the poem's audience can identify with Wiglaf in a way we could not with Beowulf. Beowulf's experiences in the poem consist almost entirely of heroic deeds and boasting speeches; his emotional range is narrow.

His process of mourning and subsequent growth into leadership creates an appealing and sympathetic character, a new kind of hero to end the epic. Wiglaf excels in stereotypically masculine performance: he remains loyal to his king as they fight together to kill the dragon. He also excels in more stereotypically feminine performance: he nurses, he mourns, he prepares a funeral.

In his association with death and its aftermath, Wiglaf performs a heroism that encourages empathy and imitation — or, in short, intimacy.

Members of the poem's audience will probably never have a chance to kill a dragon, but all will mourn loved ones. This affective connection endows Wiglaf with emotional attractiveness; ironically, his masculine appeal and social status are enhanced by his grief in such a way that Wiglaf's performance realigns the poem's definition of heroic masculinity away from military stoicism and towards emotional association. As such, the final hero is Wiglaf, the empathetic, emotional, dynamic, and multidimensional man.

While the Geats do not have a new king at the end of the poem, the audience has a new, more intimate definition of heroism. Series: Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture.