Asher Period 4 Team 2

Alex Fung

Kevin Kusayanagi

Eric Horng

Joel Sunabe

Team #2

Cultural conflict, a disagreement between cultural beliefs and values by different sides, is an inevitable and a natural process to separate one group from another. The Anglo-Saxons and the Greeks both have different views on death. Anglo-Saxons believed that death is a common and a way of life instead of a fact of life and allow the bodies to be burned above ground while

the Greeks believed that the bodies should be buried underground. Though there are many

differences between the two cultures, Anglo-Saxons inherited a trait of violence from the ancient

Greek culture. The Anglo-Saxon literature reflected on the Anglo-Saxon culture, which was

influenced heavily by the ancient Greek culture. One of the ancient Anglo-Saxon

poetries, “Beowulf,” can represent the cultural conflict between the Anglo-Saxons and the

Greeks. Towards the end of the story, the Greats granted Beowulf’s wishes and granted him a

pyre. This was not usual in the ancient Greek traditions. In addition, only one God was

mentioned in the story Beowulf. This reflects on the cultural conflicts more on the Anglo-Saxon

beliefs and traditions rather than the old and ancient Greek religion. The ways on how the Anglo-Saxons and the ancient Greeks treated the dead bodies reflected on their religions. Comparing to the Anglo-Saxon only worshipping one God, the ancient Greeks worshipped many Gods such as Apollo and Athena, which were mentioned during the last synthesis question. As a result, the

Anglo-Saxon became more Christian towards the end of the Anglo-Saxon era.

asher p 2 team 7

“The Seafarer” is an Anglo-Saxon poem that illustrates the lavish burial rituals of its time. The poem is told from the point of view of a seafarer who reminisces about his life and sea and the path to heaven. The poem is also very much about death and the Anglo-Saxon rituals that go along with death. The speaker describes the spiritual life after death and then in lines 97-102, the heathen is described of how people in the Anglo-Saxon period were buried in a very lavish way, with jewels and that the treasure is then taken into the context world; “Though he would strew the grave with gold, a brother for his kinsman, bury with the dead, a mass of treasure”. This culture depicted in “the Seafarer” completely contradicts Greek culture. In Greek culture, burials were less focused on class ranking and proper burials were performed for all persons. The Greeks would lay out the body on a funeral pit and burn the body. Also in Greek culture, the relationship between God was formed by sacrificial rituals, whereas Anglo-Saxon religion is connected with the divine by believing that one must live an honorable life in order to have a good path to heaven determined by God.