nearly all the censure , and most of the praise , that has been bestowed on the beowulf has been due either to the belief that it was something that it was not-for example , primitive , pagan , teutonic , an allegory ( political or mythical ) , or most often , an epic ; or to disappointment at the discovery that it was itself and not something that the scholar would have liked better-for example , a heathen heroic lay , a history of sweden , a manual of germanic antiquities , or a nordic summa theologica .