Beowulf was the first recorded literary work of the english people. The first record of what life was like for anglo-saxons, as many historians have pointed out. To know from from whence we came. If not a complete, concise anthology, but fragments, minute pieces of our past, we have learned of our beginnings, and through an endless search of our history, influenced in part and guided by discoveries such as Beowulf we have now a better understanding of who we are. SEAN ieng1714