The epic poem Beowulf, is a work of fiction and was composed between the mid-seventh and the end of the tenth centuries of the first millennium, in the language today called Anglo-Saxon or Old English . This story is a heroic narrative, more than three thousand lines long, concerning the deeds of the Scandinavian prince, also called Beowulf, and constitutes one of the fundamental works of poetry in English. Beowulf is obviously a creation of the poet, through Partial comparisons have been made between him and somewhat similar characters from Icelandic folklore and sagas. As for the other characters in the poem, it would probably have been shortly before 500 and he would have died very old. That Beowulf's origins are obscure, that he apparently never married and/or had children, that he only returned from the battle that took his king's life instead of dying at his side in the best heroic-Germanic tradition, that he was almost completely inactive in the conflicts between Gaea and Sweden, who sometimes seems superhuman and other times simply an extraordinary man, who is such a curious mixture of the pagan and the Christian, that he never appears anywhere else in all the literature of the North - These things are not annoying or difficult to understand when we realize that a great poet was trying something great and new, and that he created for his work and his original character to bring together all his complex characteristics. The poem was written in England but the events it describes are set in Scandinavia, in a partly historical "once upon a time". Its hero, Beowulf, is the greatest presence among the warriors in the land of the Geats, a territory located in what is now southern Sweden, and at the beginning of the poem Beowulf cr...... middle of paper.. ....at a high price. The dragon bites Beowulf on the neck, and its fiery venom kills him moments after their meeting. The Geats fear that their enemies will attack them now that Beowulf is dead. According to Beowulf's wishes, they burn the body of the deceased king on a huge funeral pyre and then bury him with enormous treasure in a mound overlooking the sea. ReferencesHeaney, Seamus. Beowulf: a new verse translation. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000. Lawall, Sarah. The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. 8th edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2005 Nye, Robert. Beowulf: A New Telling.New York:Bantom Doubleday Dell Books for For Young Readers, 1963Raffell, Burton. Beowulf: translation with introduction and afterword. Massachusetts: Amherst, 1971Rebsamen, Frederick. Beowulf: a new verse translation. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.