Please indulge a literary observation on 9-11.

New York City is a literary town, as any reader of the ‘New Yorker’ knows. Two summers ago presented a peculiar scene. During the late July lull there were at least four ‘Beowulf’ productions/readings (based on the magnificent epic Old English poem, which has little relation to the movie abominations).

Although none of the arts reviews probed into this phenonemon of readings, opera, and adaptations, an onlooker could easily discern local literary imaginations instinctively reaching back to a narrative of aspiration, conflict, doomed buildings, heroic engagement with evil, second attacks, and, looming always in the future, the eventual destruction of the shining hall Heorot and the eventual destruction of Beowulf’s kingdom by the fire-breathing dragon.

“Heorot (‘The Hart’) he (Hrothgar) named it
whose message had might in many a land.
Not reckless of promise, the rings he dealt,
treasure at banquet: there towered the hall,
high, gabled wide, the hot surge waiting
of furious flame.

“Nor far was that day
when father and son-in-law stood in feud
for warfare and hatred that woke again.
With envy and anger an evil spirit
endured the dole in his dark abode . . . .”

On this day of remembrance, one would find no small profit in revisiting this great elegy on heroic encounter with human failings and monstrous evil, always aware of more evil and destruction looming in the future.