Beowulf Versus Siddhartha: Who is the True Hero? All event's in a hero's journey culminate into one point when he gains either new knowledge or power that facilitates his transition into a higher status. This so-called “apotheosis” typically occurs before the hero's final task and enables him to achieves feats that he would otherwise be incapable of. In the novel Siddhartha by Herman Hesse and the epic poem Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney, both protagonists in the stories undergo significant
The story of Beowulf is a tale of compelling forces in a Scandinavian culture that ultimately determined an ideal hero. Throughout literary works in history there have been examples of good and bad epic heroes. Faulkner stated, “The Homeric hero despises death, he recognizes this as a boundary that creates heroic possibilities” (Falkner, 29) Not this alone makes an epic hero that will soon be revealed. Beowulf will be compared and contrasted against good as well as bad examples of epic heroes through