A proseminar aimed at second and third years
Beowulf is the tale of a man who kills monsters – dragons, and shadowy swamp-dwellers. Interlaced with its heroic exploits are tales of human struggle and suffering in the face of darkness and evil – and more simply in the face of inevitable old age and death. But Beowulf is as mysterious as it is celebrated. The poet is unknown and the narrative itself is rich with supernatural mystery, but there are questions too about why a poem featuring a Scandinavian hero was copied down in Anglo-Saxon England, why an apparently Christian scribe recorded an apparently pagan oral poem, and why he chose to do so in a manuscript with very diverse other texts. It is not even known how the manuscript survived – it was missing for 500 years. In this course, we will consider some of these mysteries and study the text itself, looking at selected passages in Old English, but also considering the whole poem in various modern English translations and adaptations. We will also discuss a number of Beowulf films and their presentation of the poem’s monsters.
Learning outcomes:
- Basic knowledge of Old English language
- Consideration of theories of translation and adaptation
- Familiarity with the Old English Beowulf and its manuscript
- Basic understanding of Anglo-Saxon history and culture
- Appreciation of importance of the Anglo-Saxon world in the modern imagination
- Enseignant·e: Elisabeth Dutton