SoSe 21: S-Literatures of Medieval Britain: Beowulf Retold
Lea von der Linde
Comments
The Old English poem Beowulf is, superficially speaking, a story about heroes, monsters, and cultures long gone. Yet, it continues to be remarkably productive and relevant even in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries since it raises questions that reach far beyond the boundaries of its genre and presumed cultural context. In this course, we will engage with texts that interpret and transform the various themes of the poem in very different ways.
The course aims at furthering the students’ understanding of the issues connected to reading a text, especially one that is as old and culturally remote as Beowulf, and of how literary interpretations shape the source text itself as well as our conceptions of the Middle Ages.
Students participating in this course are required to get hold of the following works:
- Donaldson, E. Talbot, trans. Beowulf: A Prose Translation. Backgrounds and Contexts, Criticism. Ed. Nicholas Howe. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 2002.
- John Gardner’s Grendel (1971 or any other edition)
- Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead (1976 or any other edition)
- Maria Dahvana Headley’s The Mere Wife (2018).
Additional readings and materials will be announced over the course of the semester.
close13 Class schedule
Regular appointments