Why a game about Beowulf?

Ron Edwards asked me a probing, fundamental question in an exchange over at his site Adept Play. I recommend that you see the full exchange there and to look at other posts.

Here's the question he asked

Before really getting into the document, I want to know more. It's not an easy question: why have students at this grade level, today's culture, faced with today's problems, encounter Beowulf at all?

That’s a very complex question, and one which demands multiple answers. Here are a few . . .

One value of reading Beowulf is that it is a text which revolves around problems and crises: It shows characters responding to those crises in different ways, and also shows the consequences (sometimes unpredictable) of those decisions. Are those problems the same as the problems our society faces? Yes and no . . . but both the similarities and differences have important values.

The problems faced within Beowulf are different than our problems: In our world, we face countless situations where groups and people are facing problems that are not our problems. This is the case both globally (the problems facing Vietnam, for example, are often not the problems facing the United States) and locally (the problems facing a single mother living in a housing project in downtown Orlando are not my problems). Does that mean that problems that are not my problems are not important or that I should not pay attention to them or learn about them? Holding to the line that my problems (or our problems) are the only ones worth thinking about would lead to a very narrow and toxic way of confronting the world. We should equip ourselves (and I should equip my students) to be able to build empathy: Even if someone (or some other group) is facing problems that are not my problems, I should develop the ability to see the challenges and difficulties facing them . . . and perhaps see a way to helping them or offering up solutions. That’s one way we can tear down walls and build community.

The problems faced within Beowulf are similar to our problems: This notion might initially seem unlikely. The world of Beowulf is so different from our world. But if we develop the sensitivity to see some similarities, the text might give us a different lens through which to view these problems. To take one example, there are situations where a warrior of one tribe is harmed, and the members of that warrior’s tribe are then weighing the response: Is it better to wage war? to ask for some compensation of material value? to seek help from allies? to withhold resources from the offending party? To decide, I need to look at the options, evaluate possible consequences, and take action. The concerns of Beowulf are not entirely irrelevant to, say, the current situation involving the death of Jamal Khashoggi and the responses being weighed.

Beyond the realm of problem solving, Beowulf is important because, in order to understand that text, we must expend some real effort to grasp the cultural background driving it. And if we are successful in that effort, we are gaining some valuable skills and tools that might help us to deal with cultural differences when we confront them in other contexts. Students might find the actions, beliefs, and values of Beowulf to be strange and foreign . . . just as they will find the actions, beliefs, and values of other cultures and communities to be strange and foreign. To develop an understanding requires imagination, empathy, creativity, and insight--and these are all abilities that can be cultivated and taught. Presenting students with a challenging text like Beowulf can build those muscles in a way that other easier and more accessible texts cannot.

Beyond these more sweeping arguments, there are some other specific topics and themes that make Beowulf valuable: It is about how the “monsters” we face in the future are created by the choices we have made in the past. It is about adapting to new roles and changing situations as we age (and about how we confront our mortality). It is about dealing with conflicting value systems that we hold (for example, what happens when the value of maintaining honor comes into conflict with the value of  preserving health and even life?). These are all important, real issues and valuable to think about.

Beowulf is a great text to confront these topics and more. And there is a real power to Beowulf both in terms of its story and in terms of the aesthetic experience it offers. But is not an “easy” text: It requires imagination and alertness from its reader. My sense is that a well constructed game (and in this case this means a game that can both stand on its own two legs AND also one that faithfully accompanies the poem) can assist in building those imaginative and intellectual powers.