The Story of Beowulf

The Story of Beowulf PDF Author: Ernest J. B. Kirtlan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English literature
Languages : en
Pages : 230

Get Book

Book Description

The Story of Beowulf

The Story of Beowulf PDF Author: Ernest J. B. Kirtlan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English literature
Languages : en
Pages : 230

Get Book

Book Description


The Transmission of "Beowulf"

The Transmission of Author: Leonard Neidorf
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501708279
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Get Book

Book Description
Beowulf, like The Iliad and The Odyssey, is a foundational work of Western literature that originated in mysterious circumstances. In The Transmission of Beowulf, Leonard Neidorf addresses philological questions that are fundamental to the study of the poem. Is Beowulf the product of unitary or composite authorship? How substantially did scribes alter the text during its transmission, and how much time elapsed between composition and preservation? Neidorf answers these questions by distinguishing linguistic and metrical regularities, which originate with the Beowulf poet, from patterns of textual corruption, which descend from copyists involved in the poem’s transmission. He argues, on the basis of archaic features that pervade Beowulf and set it apart from other Old English poems, that the text preserved in the sole extant manuscript (ca. 1000) is essentially the work of one poet who composed it circa 700. Of course, during the poem’s written transmission, several hundred scribal errors crept into its text. These errors are interpreted in the central chapters of the book as valuable evidence for language history, cultural change, and scribal practice. Neidorf’s analysis reveals that the scribes earnestly attempted to standardize and modernize the text’s orthography, but their unfamiliarity with obsolete words and ancient heroes resulted in frequent errors. The Beowulf manuscript thus emerges from his study as an indispensible witness to processes of linguistic and cultural change that took place in England between the eighth and eleventh centuries. An appendix addresses J. R. R. Tolkien’s Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, which was published in 2014. Neidorf assesses Tolkien’s general views on the transmission of Beowulf and evaluates his position on various textual issues.

Beowulf

Beowulf PDF Author:
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486111105
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 70

Get Book

Book Description
Finest heroic poem in Old English celebrates the exploits of Beowulf, a young nobleman of southern Sweden. Combines myth, Christian and pagan elements, and history into a powerful narrative. Genealogies.

The Origins of Beowulf

The Origins of Beowulf PDF Author: Richard North
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191525731
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Get Book

Book Description
This book suggests that the Old English epic Beowulf was composed in the winter of 826-7 as a requiem for King Beornwulf of Mercia on behalf of Wiglaf, the ealdorman who succeeded him. The place of composition is given as the minster of Breedon on the Hill in Leicestershire (now Derbyshire) and the poet is named as the abbot, Eanmund. As well as pinpointing the poem's place and date of composition, Richard North raises some old questions relating to the poet's influences from Vergil and from living Danes. Norse analogues are discussed in order to identify how the poet changed his heroic sources while four episodes from Beowulf are shown to be reworked from passages in Vergil's Aeneid. One chapter assesses how the poem's Latin sources might correspond with what is known of Breedon's now-lost library while another seeks to explain Danish mythology in Beowulf by arguing that Breedon hosted a meeting with Danish Vikings in 809. This fascinating and challenging new study combines careful detective work with meticulous literary analysis to form a case that no future investigation will be able to ignore.

The Art and Thought of the "Beowulf" Poet

The Art and Thought of the Author: Leonard Neidorf
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501766910
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 259

Get Book

Book Description
In The Art and Thought of the Beowulf Poet, Leonard Neidorf explores the relationship between Beowulf and the legendary tradition that existed prior to its composition. The Beowulf poet inherited an amoral heroic tradition, which focused principally on heroes compelled by circumstances to commit horrendous deeds: fathers kill sons, brothers kill brothers, and wives kill husbands. Medieval Germanic poets relished the depiction of a hero's unyielding response to a cruel fate, but the Beowulf poet refused to construct an epic around this traditional plot. Focusing instead on a courteous and pious protagonist's fight against monsters, the poet creates a work that is deeply untraditional in both its plot and its values. In Beowulf, the kin-slayers and oath-breakers of antecedent tradition are confined to the background, while the poet fills the foreground with unconventional characters, who abstain from transgression, display courtly etiquette, and express monotheistic convictions. Comparing Beowulf with its medieval German and Scandinavian analogues, The Art and Thought of the Beowulf Poet argues that the poem's uniqueness reflects one poet's coherent plan for the moral renovation of an amoral heroic tradition. In Beowulf, Neidorf discerns the presence of a singular mind at work in the combination and modification of heroic, folkloric, hagiographical, and historical materials. Rather than perceive Beowulf as an impersonally generated object, Neidorf argues that it should be read as the considered result of one poet's ambition to produce a morally edifying, theologically palatable, and historically plausible epic out of material that could not independently constitute such a poem.

Dragon Slayer

Dragon Slayer PDF Author: Rosemary Sutcliff
Publisher: Puffin
ISBN: 9780140302547
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 107

Get Book

Book Description
The story of Beowulf's life, his battle with the monster Grendel, and his death after a fight with a dragon.

Beowulf

Beowulf PDF Author:
Publisher: Wordsworth Editions
ISBN: 9781840226140
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Get Book

Book Description
Beowulf, a young warrior of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, king of the Danes, in his time of need. He first fights the hellish Grendel, then struggles with Grendel's no less fearsome mother in her hall beneath the cold waters of the mere. More than fifty years later, he must face his final challenge in the shape of a huge dragon.

The Deeds of Beowulf

The Deeds of Beowulf PDF Author: John Earle
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Beowulf
Languages : en
Pages : 334

Get Book

Book Description


Beowulf the Warrior

Beowulf the Warrior PDF Author: Ian Serraillier
Publisher: Bethlehem Books
ISBN: 1883937035
Category : Beowulf
Languages : en
Pages : 48

Get Book

Book Description
The Anglo-Saxon poem recounting the story of Beowulf's battle with the monster, Grendel, is retold in the style of modern verse

Beowulf

Beowulf PDF Author: Nicky Raven
Publisher: Candlewick Press
ISBN: 9780763636470
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 100

Get Book

Book Description
A modern, illustrated retelling of the Anglo-Saxon epic about the heroic efforts of Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow, to save the people of Heorot Hall from the terrible monster, Grendel.