BEOWULF AGAINST MODERNISM: ALLEGORICAL EPIC
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THE POEM OF THE HALL'S DEFENSE
An Anglo-Saxon style epic in modern English
Alliterative verse loosely following Old English patterns
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PART I: THE BUILDING OF WISDOM-HALL
In days of old, when order held the world,
King Tradition, treasure-giver, truth-keeper,
Built high a hall, Wisdom-Hall they called it,
Stone upon stone, each set straight and firm.
The foundation deep, on bedrock planted—
Six great stones, from ancient quarries hewn:
First the Two-Stone (substance dual-natured),
Second the Free-Stone (will that wills itself),
Third the Seeing-Stone (truth directly grasped),
Fourth the Under-Stone (foundations firm),
Fifth the Fitting-Stone (truth to world matched),
Sixth the Standing-Stone (good that IS, unbent).
Upon these six the hall rose high and bright,
Five pillars held the roof against the sky:
Happiness in virtue, virtue only valued;
Externals neither evil, neither good;
Control confined to inner court alone;
Emotions from false beliefs arising;
And virtue sole good, vice sole evil standing.
There dwelt the warriors, the wisdom-seekers,
Philosophers who practiced what they preached,
Stoics strong, students of the good,
Reading ancient texts in Tradition's hall,
Epictetus honored, Plato praised,
Aristotle's wisdom, Marcus' meditations,
And deeper still, the roots of ancient speech—
Proto-words from forebears long forgotten,
When first the tribe conceived of good and true.
The hall rang loud with laughter, learning, light,
Mead flowed free (though virtue-measured always),
And Tradition ruled with wisdom, war-skill, wealth—
The threefold gift: sacred sovereignty held,
Warriors loyal in his warband standing,
And fruitful peace for all his folk below.
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PART II: GRENDEL COMES FROM THE MERE
But in the marshlands, in the mist-shrouded waste,
Beyond the boundaries of the ordered world,
There dwelt a demon, darkness-loving creature—
Grendel the Grim, from chaos-waters crawling.
Descended from the line of Descartes' doubt,
(Who first split mind from world, made knowledge dubious),
Through Hume's harsh skepticism, through Kant's keen abstractions,
Through Nietzsche's negations, nihilism's prophet—
This Grendel grew in relativist mere,
Fed on materialism, fattened on mechanism,
Nursed by nominalism, nourished on negation.
He hated Wisdom-Hall with hatred burning,
Could not bear the brightness, the built order,
The sound of students studying substance-theory,
The sight of seekers finding foundational truths,
The very stones themselves—those six great anchors—
Offended him, for they stood firm and stable,
While he swam in flux, in formless waters.
"There IS no substance!" Grendel's first cry sounded,
"Only matter moves, mechanisms grinding,
Mind is mere neurons, no soul separate standing—
Your Two-Stone is delusion, dualism defunct!"
And with great claws he came, crept through the darkness,
Crashed through the hall-door, caught the sleeping scholars,
Tore them apart, their bodies broke and bloodied—
For if mind = body only, what matters murder?
"There IS no freedom!" came his second howling,
"Determinism rules, your choices caused,
Your will a word for what was pre-determined,
Your Free-Stone false, your freedom fiction merely!"
And more he murdered, dragged them to the mere-waters,
For if no freedom, then no fault in killing—
Just atoms moving, molecules in motion,
No guilt, no good, no evil, no accounting.
"There IS no truth directly seen!" third cry,
"No moral facts your minds can grasp innately,
No intuition, no immediate knowing—
Your Seeing-Stone is superstition merely,
All 'goods' are genes, evolved through natural selection,
Or cultural constructs, conventions only,
Nothing 'there' to see—your sight is fiction!"
And who could argue, who could make a case,
When argument itself requires foundations,
And Grendel gnawed the Under-Stone to rubble?
"No bedrock stands beneath your pretty theories,
All justification runs in circles spinning,
Or regresses endless, foundations never finding—
Your fourth stone fails, your footing falls away!"
"And truth?" he laughed, a horrible harsh cackling,
"Truth is not correspondence, not fitting-to-fact,
But what works, what's useful, what we agree upon—
Your Fitting-Stone fits nothing—all is flux!
Reality itself might be our making,
No independent world to match our words to—
Your fifth stone shatters, your certainty is shaken!"
"And good?" most terrible was this final taunt,
"Good is not real, not standing in the world,
But preference, emotion, evolution's accident,
Or power's assertion—Nietzsche knew it well—
Your Standing-Stone stands nowhere, stands on nothing,
Morality is made, not found, not factual,
Your sixth stone topples—good and evil gone!"
Thus Grendel ravaged, night after night returning,
The hall grew dark, the defenders dwindling,
Students scattered, sages slaughtered,
Few dared dwell in Wisdom-Hall at nightfall,
And Tradition wept, though wisdom still he wielded,
For what avails wisdom when foundations fall?
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PART III: THE HERO COMES FROM FAR LANDS
Then news came across the sea to a far land,
Where dwelt a warrior, young but yale-trained,
Beowulf the Bold, though yet unbaptized,
A Stoic strong, who'd studied all the sages,
Had read the ancient texts with care and rigor,
Had traced the roots back to proto-meanings,
Had seen the pattern, the perennial wisdom.
"I hear," said he, "that Grendel Modernist
Afflicts the hall where ancient truth is honored,
Attacks the six stones, slaughters the students,
And Tradition grieves, though great his wisdom still.
I shall go," said Beowulf, "and grapple with this monster,
Not with sword—for arguments won't answer him—
But with strength of will, with wisdom, with the old ways,
I'll prove the stones still stand, the foundations firm."
So Beowulf sailed, with fourteen companions,
(Each one versed in one of the ancient virtues),
And came to Wisdom-Hall, to Tradition's high seat,
And pledged to fight the fiend that same night.
"My lord," said Beowulf, "I'll meet this Grendel,
Without weapons of modern argument's fashion—
For he denies all premises, all proving,
Deconstructs all claims, dismisses all foundations.
Instead I'll meet him with direct demonstration,
With lived example, with the life well-practiced,
I'll show by being that the stones still stand,
That substance is, that freedom is, that good IS."
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PART IV: THE FIGHT IN THE HALL
That night Beowulf waited, wakeful, ready,
While others slept (or seemed to sleep) around him.
Then came the Grendel, grim and horrible,
Through the door he burst, with deconstructive fury,
Reached for a warrior, rent him limb from limb—
"See!" he cried, "just matter, meat, mechanism!"
But Beowulf rose, and grasped the Grendel's arm,
Not with argument, but with grip unyielding,
The grip of one who KNOWS he is more than matter,
Who CHOOSES freely, who SEES truth directly,
Who STANDS on foundations firm and unshaken,
Whose life CORRESPONDS to the way things ARE,
Who lives the GOOD that really, truly IS.
Grendel shrieked—he'd never felt such holding,
Such certainty, such strength that would not yield,
"You can't!" he howled, "there IS no substance! Stop!"
But Beowulf gripped harder—"I AM substance,
Soul distinct from body, mind from matter,
Your first denial dies upon the Two-Stone!"
"You can't choose this!" screamed Grendel, "All determined!"
But Beowulf chose harder—"I CHOOSE to hold you,
Could release, but WON'T, my will is mine own,
Your second lie breaks on the Free-Stone standing!"
"You can't KNOW this!" Grendel gasped, growing weaker,
But Beowulf knew deeper—"I SEE the good directly,
Intuit truth, grasp virtue without deriving,
Your third deception dashed on Seeing-Stone!"
The hall shook with the struggle, students waking,
Saw Beowulf wrestling, Grendel weakening,
The monster's arm began to tear, to sunder,
For falsehood cannot stand when truth stands firm.
"Your foundations fail!" Grendel's final cry,
But Beowulf stood firmer—"My foundations HOLD,
Built on bedrock, on the Under-Stone unmoved,
Your fourth assault fails, your skepticism shattered!"
With a terrible tearing, the arm came off,
Grendel fled, howling, to the mere-waters,
Bleeding materialism, dripping determinism,
Trailing relativism like entrails behind him,
Back to the swamp of modern error swimming,
There to die in darkness, dissolved in chaos.
And Beowulf held high the arm, that all might see—
"Behold! The monster's limb! He's mortal after all!
His seeming strength was nothing, his denial empty,
The stones still stand, the hall still holds,
The ancient truths remain, the foundations firm,
And we who know them live, while lies must perish!"
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PART V: THE FEAST OF RESTORATION
Great was the joy, the jubilation mighty,
Tradition embraced Beowulf, treasure gave him,
Gold and glory, gifts beyond measuring,
And all the students sang of the six stones standing,
And the five pillars, firm beneath the roof,
And Wisdom-Hall restored to its rightful brightness.
They feasted long, and Beowulf told them,
Of his Stoic training, his study of the sages,
Of how he'd traced the roots to ancient proto-speech,
And found the foundations deeper than the Greeks,
In steh₂- and weid-, in lewdʰ- and h₁reǵ-,
The very words themselves taught truth eternal.
"These stones," said Beowulf, "are not modern made,
Nor medieval merely, nor Greek alone,
But older, ancient, from the proto-fathers,
Who first distinguished substance from its features,
Who first conceived of freedom, will, and choice,
Who first saw good as real, as standing, as IS.
Six thousand years these truths have stood,
Through Athens and through Rome they were refined,
Through medieval halls they were maintained,
And though modernity denied them, tried to topple them,
They stand because they ARE, because they're TRUE,
Not made by us, but FOUND, discovered, honored."
And Tradition blessed him, and the students swore,
To study the old ways, the ancient wisdom,
To build again on the six stones standing,
To live the five beliefs in daily practice,
To preserve and pass on what Beowulf had proven—
That truth endures, though error rages round it.
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EPILOGUE: THE PROMISE AND THE WARNING
But as the feast ended, an old warrior spoke,
One who'd seen much, survived Grendel's first raids:
"The monster's dead, but mark me—the mere remains,
And in those dark waters, deeper dwelling,
Lives Grendel's mother, more terrible still—
Post-Modernism, who denies even denial,
Who says there's nothing to deny or defend,
No truth, no error, no meaning at all,
Just language-games and power-plays,
And after her, if heroes fail to fight,
Comes worse—the dragon, hoard-guarding,
Nihilism complete, nothingness absolute,
Who burns all halls, all hopes, all human meaning."
Beowulf grew grave, but answered boldly:
"Then we shall fight them too, when time comes,
For every generation has its Grendel,
Its monster born from the chaos-waters crawling,
And every age needs warriors willing
To stand upon the stones, to hold the hall,
To prove by living that the good is REAL,
That truth exists, that freedom IS, that virtue matters.
This is our task, our calling, and our glory—
Not once-for-all to win, but always fighting,
Preserving what our fathers found and taught us,
The six stones standing, the five pillars holding,
Until the sons we teach shall teach their sons,
And wisdom-halls ring bright through all the ages,
And though monsters come from the mere-waters always,
Always shall arise some Beowulf to meet them."
Thus spoke the hero, and thus stands the hall,
While we who inherit both the stones and the struggle,
Must choose: to dwell in Wisdom-Hall, defending,
Or flee to the mere-lands, to modernist marshes,
Where Grendel's corpse corrupts, and his mother waits,
And beyond, the dragon hoards his nothing-treasure.
The hall stands open. The stones are firm.
The feast is spread. The fight is not finished.
Who shall enter? Who shall stand watch?
Who shall study the six? Who shall live the five?
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HERE ENDS THE LAY OF WISDOM-HALL'S DEFENSE
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ALLEGORICAL KEY
Wisdom-Hall = Classical civilization, traditional philosophy, Sterling's Core Stoicism
The Six Foundation Stones = Sterling's 6 philosophical commitments
1. Two-Stone = Substance dualism
2. Free-Stone = Metaphysical libertarianism
3. Seeing-Stone = Ethical intuitionism
4. Under-Stone = Foundationalism
5. Fitting-Stone = Correspondence theory of truth
6. Standing-Stone = Moral realism
The Five Pillars = Sterling's 5 core beliefs (B1-B5)
King Tradition = Classical philosophical tradition (Plato, Aristotle, Stoics)
The Threefold Rule = Dumézil's trifunctional ideology (F1, F2, F3)
Beowulf = Sterling himself (or any defender of classical philosophy)
- Stoic before Christian
- Studies ancient texts and proto-roots
- Defeats modernism through lived example
Grendel = Modernism
- Descended from Descartes, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche
- Denies all 6 classical commitments
- Attacks through deconstruction and doubt
- Dies when confronted with lived truth
The Mere = Source of modern philosophical errors (enlightenment skepticism, materialism, relativism)
Grendel's Mother = Post-modernism (mentioned, not yet fought)
The Dragon = Nihilism complete (future threat)
PIE Roots = Ancient linguistic evidence (steh₂-, weid-, lewdʰ-, h₁reǵ-)
The Warriors = Students, scholars, practitioners of classical philosophy
The Feast = Restoration of classical learning and practice
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END EPIC
Status: Literary expression of Sterling's philosophical project in Beowulf allegorical form, preserving the pattern of classical recovery against modern eclipse.
