Kind of a neat idea. . .

The one part of Niles' article on ring composition (which I find almost completely persuasive) that I don't agree with has to do with his reading of the mere. It's hard to make a strong claim that this point of the text is a narrative or thematic climax: for one thing, there is a clear progression in the structure of the monsters that suggests the dragon is the worst-case scenario; for another, the novelty/subliminality of Grendel's mother is undermined by the fact that we have basically seen her before (in a different form). Moreover, her episode is somewhat short, and there is little build-up of dread (even retroactively, as in Wiglaf's after-the-event speech about how everyone had tried to convince Beowulf not to go fight the dragon). Her appearance on the scene reminds me a little bit of the "mother of"/"bride of" convention in horror movie sequels: the original monster returns with a different face. The threat is feminized in order to allow a recapitulation of the original danger. Grendel's mother seems to me to be essentially a resurrection of the original threat. The character has changed (sort of) but the danger is the same. These monster episodes, in my best off-the-cuff judgment at 11:51 this morning, should be considered together.

That's not the kind-of neat idea, though. It strikes me that in looking for a climax at all--whether consciously or unconsciously--Niles may be missing the implication of one of his own theories, namely that rings do not (spacially) have high points or climaxes. The movement of the narrative is voyage-out-and-return, but this movement is conducted without a particular narrative climax.

It's interesting that--as Vendler has commented (I think in her book on young poets)--the chiasm is essentially the structure of forethought. Here I think we get forethought; the poem is composed, built.