A Legend Is A Story That Has Probable Historical Roots But Has Been Told And Ret

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Term Paper Title	A Legend Is A Story That Has Probable Historical Roots But Has Been Told And Ret
# of Words	1317
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	5.27

     A legend is a story that has probable historical roots but has been told and retold, embellished and personalized to the individual and their culture.  The hero in a legend is generally larger than life.  Legends are often narrative and present a theme or problem that was central to the development of the time period.  Heroic tradition is , simply stated, the ages old pattern of story that begins with a hero in unusual circumstances, the search or quest, the transformation of the Hero and a resolution.  The stories are told in spiral sequence, one aspect leads to the next until the resolution brings the reader back to another unusual beginning.  Beowulf, an epic poem of Old English origins, and the Poem of the Cid, an eleventh-century epic poem from Spain, are both considered legends from the oral tradition that mirror the developmental stages of their culture.  The two main components that define their status as legends are the existence of a Hero with a quest and a theme that revolves around the stage of development of the cultural system.
     Beowulf is one of the earliest renditions of the heroic tradition.  Probably set in 8th century England, it tells the tale of the classic Hero: Beowulf.  It is a graphic combination of the principles of history and legend.  The method of presentation -  alliterative verse and Anglo-Saxon epic poem - is reflective of the native folklore and traditional patterns of thinking.  The iconography includes symbols derived from historical, legendary, pagan, mythological and Christian traditions.  To the modern reader, it is a classic tale of a hero in conflict with supernatural monsters of evil where the resolution merely precedes yet another quest.
     The historical aspects of Beowulf have been mostly conjectured from historical records and other literature of the time.  The study of such ancient texts is a window into the past that provides clues as to the social and cultural habits of the people of the time.  It is important to consider that the author holds some control as a consequence of literary license and personal biases.  As is true of all legends, both Beowulf and El Cid are works of fiction due to embellishments based on earlier traditions or folklore.  Both are biased toward the patriotic perceptions of the author.
     Beowulf is a classic legend from Old English whose central historical theme seems to be the transition from Roman law to a feudalistic societal structure.  The Poem of the Cid also qualifies as a l...

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