O Rosto do Herói Medieval: Beowulf e Gawain

The hero is a universal and timeless figure portraying relatively the same adventure throughout the ages as many authors have pointed out, namely Joseph Campbell in his famous book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Although having this assumption into consideration, we would like to prove that the medieval hero displays unique characteristics that are intimately related to the social, political, ideological and religious background of the Medieval era. In this sense, we will focus on those same characteristics and on two of the major heroes of medieval English literature, namely Beowulf and Gawain.