EVERY reader has a certain selection of famous, well-regarded, critically-acclaimed, enduring works of literature that the readers knows he/she must at least attempt to read – even if only for the very superficial reason of reading, to be among the rare handful of human beings who have actually finished the iconic work of literature in question. I, for example, know that I should actually read Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre,” but alas, I can never seem to bring myself to complete it.

However, I do think that I am making progress when it comes to removing famous literature from the shelf, whilst simultaneously putting away all of my reasons for not reading any of these particular books, reasons which may include everything from me not enjoying early Victorian works, to me wanting to read works written by contemporary writers of colour. The reasons vary, but ultimately, they are abandoned when I do get it into my mind to sit down with one of these books on those rare occasions.

Sometimes, I am compelled to read something for purely utilitarian or economic or social reasons. A good example of this, can be first seen when I took it upon myself to read “Beowulf,” something I had known of for a very long time but continuously kept putting away until I had to teach analysis of the poem to my high school students and, therefore, I was compelled to read it in order to properly prep myself to be able to teach them. The situation, however, was not as bad as I expected. What could have been a scenario where I was forced to read a book I disliked turned out to be one where I found myself reading a book I thought I would dislike, but instead it was actually a book that I found myself enjoying very much.

The first thing that I found significant about “Beowulf” was the fact that the author is unknown. I had long assumed that the epic poem had been written by someone held in high esteem, some great writer that the literary world has known and recognised for his/her greatness for centuries. However, even though the version of the text I read was translated from the Old English by Nobel Prize Laureate, Seamus Heaney, the true author of the poem has never been actually identified. I thought it interesting that a writer’s work can occupy such an important space in world history and world literature, while the writer him/herself dies and disappears into the unknown as his/her writings, like a living thing, continues to exist and thrive.

“Beowulf” as a poem chronicling the rise and fall of an epic hero, reminded me of other important epic poems found in world literature. The example that immediately comes to mind is the “Mahabharata” which is the Hindu epic, coming out of India, that, like “Beowulf” also is a tale of warrior and kings and monsters. Reading “Beowulf” made me realise that there is much value to these long, old poems – the “Mahabharata,” for example was memorised and passed down orally for many centuries because of its importance to Hinduism – which means that in order to truly recognise literature that does not only emerge from Europe where they were written by white men, we must reevaluate our entire notion of ‘good literature’ and include works that come from non-white, non-European societies, or we run the risk of constantly viewing only that kind of literature as the best kind of literature and, therefore, always regarding those as the classics, when there is existing work that is as strong or stronger than those that have emerged from Europe. In essence, I feel like there is no valid reason for why non-European works (such as the “Mahabharata”) cannot be regarded as beautiful, as finely written, as worthy of study and as iconic and classical as European work (such as “Beowulf”).

Something that I really got to appreciate about “Beowulf” while reading it, is the myriad of elements that it presents to us about the society in which it was written. It was a reminder of the way in which literature not only shapes our society but represents it. The pervasiveness of religion in the poem, from the way the horrid monster, Grendel, and his evil mother are connected to Cain and hell, as well as the constant allusions to God and all he has done for the Geats (the central people of the text) clearly indicate that whatever society the poem was written in clearly focused a lot of attention to the doctrine, and that Christianity and/or Judaism were important elements of the society, something that is also expressed in the constant, repeated thematic expressions of good and evil in the poem. It is also hard to ignore the patriarchal setup of the writer’s environment as well, which also manages to make its way into the poem – as seen in the ways the women, including the noblewomen, are relegated to miniscule or empty roles that sometimes do not even have names.

In retrospect, while I did enjoy reading “Beowulf” and I did appreciate that there was much more to the story than what was portrayed in the film adaptation from the mid-2000s, the most valuable thing I got, was a lesson in how much a text takes on the life of the writer and the environment in which the writer lives. A second lesson has to do with regarding non-European literature as worthy and as good as European literature. A third lesson gained from giving in and finally reading “Beowulf,” is that we all need to give the old classics a chance, to find and unearth them, no matter how far back on the book-shelf they may be stacked and hidden from view.