Read and Download eBook Full
Author: R. W. Chambers
Publisher: DigiCat
Published: 2022-05-28
Total Pages: 323
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAfter nearly a hundred years, this book is still one of the most comprehensive studies of the epic poem "Beowulf." The author of this book, Wilson Chambers, gives a detailed explanation of the poem and provides a reader with an interesting backstory about the main characters.
Author: Raymond Wilson Chambers
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
Published: 2016-06-01
Total Pages: 483
ISBN-13: 1465512144
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe unique MS of Beowulf may be, and if possible should be, seen by the student in the British Museum. It is a good specimen of the elegant script of Anglo-Saxon times: "a book got up with some care," as if intended for the library of a nobleman or of a monastery. Yet this MS is removed from the date when the poem was composed and from the events which it narrates (so far as these events are historic at all) by periods of time approximately equal to those which separate us from the time when Shakespeare's Henry V was written, and when the battle of Agincourt was fought. To try to penetrate the darkness of the five centuries which lie behind the extant MS by fitting together such fragments of illustrative information as can be obtained, and by using the imagination to bridge the gaps, has been the business of three generations of scholars distributed among the ten nations of Germanic speech. A whole library has been written around our poem, and the result is that this book cannot be as simple as either writer or reader might have wished. The story which the MS tells us may be summarized thus: Beowulf, a prince of the Geatas, voyages to Heorot, the hall of Hrothgar, king of the Danes; there he destroys a monster Grendel, who for twelve years has haunted the hall by night and slain all he found therein. When Grendel's mother in revenge makes an attack on the hall, Beowulf seeks her out and kills her also in her home beneath the waters. He then returns to his land with honour and is rewarded by his king Hygelac. Ultimately he himself becomes king of the Geatas, and fifty years later slays a dragon and is slain by it. The poem closes with an account of the funeral rites. Fantastic as these stories are, they are depicted against a background of what appears to be fact. Incidentally, and in a number of digressions, we receive much information about the Geatas, Swedes and Danes: all which information has an appearance of historic accuracy, and in some cases can be proved, from external evidence, to be historically accurate.
Author: John M. Hill
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 2010-01-01
Total Pages: 313
ISBN-13: 0802099440
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhat makes one Anglo-Saxon poem better than another? Why does Beowulf still have the power to move us after so many centuries? What might have been aesthetically pleasing to Old English readers and writers of poetry? While there is an apparent consensus by scholars on a core of poems considered to be exceptional literary achievements - Beowulf, Judith, the Vercelli book - there has been little systematic investigation of the basis for these appraisals. With new essays on rhetoric, wordplay, meter, structure, irony, form, psychology, ethos, and reader response, the contributors to this collection aim to find objective aesthetic qualities in Anglo-Saxon poetry. Posing questions of quality and beauty as discoverable in artefacts, On the Aesthetics of Beowulf and Other Old English Poems significantly advances our understanding not only of aesthetics and Old English poetry, but also of Old English attitudes towards literature as an art form.
Author: Joseph St. John
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2024-07-31
Total Pages: 221
ISBN-13: 104007765X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKGenesis Myth in Beowulf and Old English Biblical Poetry explores the adaptation of antediluvian Genesis and related myth in the Old Testament poems Genesis A and Genesis B, as well as in Beowulf, a secular heroic narrative. The book explores how the Genesis poems resort to the Christian exegetical tradition and draw on secular social norms to deliver their biblically derived and related narratives in a manner relevant to their Christian Anglo-Saxon audiences. In this book it is suggested that these elements work in unison, and that the two Genesis poems function coherently in the context of the Junius 11 manuscript. Moreover, the book explores recourse to Genesis-derived myth in Beowulf, and points to important similarities between this text and the Genesis poems. It is therefore shown that while Beowulf differs from the Genesis poems in several respects, it belongs in a corpus where religious verse enjoys prominence.
Author: Eric Gerald Stanley
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Published: 2000
Total Pages: 175
ISBN-13: 0859915883
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDecisive argument on the issues under review by one of the leading Anglo-Saxon scholars.
Author: Gale R. Owen-Crocker
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 2000
Total Pages: 280
ISBN-13: 9780719054976
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIt is well known that the old English poem Beowulf begins and ends with funerals and includes the third as a digression part way through. Now, for the first time, a fourth funeral (hitherto disguised as poetic imagery) is identified from archaeological evidence. A detailed analysis of the four funerals establishes their thematic and structural importance, revealing them as pillars around which the poem is built. The poet is revealed as a literate antiquarian of considerable structural skill; one who explores feminist issues, plays with numbers and enjoys a pun; who establishes an ideal then probes its darker side.The author's unique knowledge of Anglo-Saxon culture provides constant surprises and enlightenment. This book will be invaluable to all students of the poem for its fresh and detailed reading, its identification of a coherent structure and its establishment of the integrity of the surviving texts.
Author: Roy Liuzza
Publisher: Broadview Press
Published: 1999-12-06
Total Pages: 252
ISBN-13: 9781551111896
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe classic story of Beowulf, hero and dragon-slayer, appears here in a new translation accompanied by genealogical charts, historical summaries, and a glossary of proper names. These and other documents sketching some of the cultural forces behind the poem's final creation will help readers see Beowulf as an exploration of the politics of kingship and the psychology of heroism, and as an early English meditation on the bridges and chasms between the pagan past and the Christian present. A generous sample of other modern versions of Beowulf sheds light on the process of translating the poem.
Author: Michael D.C. Drout
Publisher: Springer
Published: 2016-08-03
Total Pages: 106
ISBN-13: 3319306286
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe most original and ground-breaking work on Beowulf in several decades, this book uses “lexomic” methods that blend computer-assisted statistical analysis with traditional approaches to reveal new and surprising information about the construction and sources of the greatest surviving Old English poem. Techniques of cluster analysis identify patterns of vocabulary distribution that indicate robust similarities and differences among segments of the poem. The correlation of these patterns with knowledge gained from source-study, philological analysis, and neglected previous scholarship sheds new light on the material of which Beowulf was made and the way it was composed. The implications of this investigation for the dating, structure, and cultural context of Beowulf will overturn the current scholarly consensus and significantly improve our understanding of the poem, its nature, and origins.
Author: Scott Gwara
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2008
Total Pages: 437
ISBN-13: 9004171703
DOWNLOAD EBOOKReaders of "Beowulf" have noted inconsistencies in Beowulf's depiction, as either heroic or reckless. "Heroic Identity in the World of Beowulf" resolves this tension by emphasizing Beowulf's identity as a foreign fighter seeking glory abroad. Such men resemble "wreccan," "exiles" compelled to leave their homelands due to excessive violence. Beowulf may be potentially arrogant, therefore, but he learns prudence. This native wisdom highlights a king's duty to his warband, in expectation of Beowulf's future rule. The dragon fight later raises the same question of incompatible identities, hero versus king. In frequent reference to Greek epic and Icelandic saga, this revisionist approach to "Beowulf" offers new interpretations of flyting rhetoric, the custom of "men dying with their lord," and the poem's digressions.
Author: Daniel C. Remein
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 2019-12-20
Total Pages: 339
ISBN-13: 1526136449
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. Featuring essays from some of the most prominent voices in early medieval studies, Dating Beowulf playfully redeploys the word ‘dating’, which usually heralds some of the most divisive critical impasses in the field, to provocatively phrase a set of new relationships with an Old English poem. The volume argues for the relevance of the early Middle Ages to affect studies and vice-versa, offering a riposte to antifeminist discourse and opening avenues for future work by specialists in the history of emotions, literary theorists, students of Old English literature and medieval scholars alike. To this end, the essays embody a range of critical approaches from queer theory to animal studies and ecocriticism to actor-network theory.
