For Thursday: Tolkien's Beowulf, pages 13- 43

For Thursday's class, be sure to read the beginning of Beowulf, from the opening to the morning after the defeat of Grendel (page 43 for us). If you have another edition of the poem, try to ballpark it, but make sure you get past the fight between Beowulf and Grendel. The line numbers of Tolkien's version differ from other translations, so even telling you what line to stop at would be problematic. 

As you read, think of the following ideas, many of which I hope to explore in Thursday's class:

* How does Tolkien's translation compare to many of the translations we read in The Word Exchange? Why might he not agree with many of those poets? What do you think his main concern in getting across was in this translation? Do you think it's successful? 

* Similar to poems like The Seafarer, how does Beowulf graft the Christian tradition onto the world of pagan monsters and folklore?  Can the two worlds co-exist within the poem, or are there moments of confusion or contradiction? 

* In a famous passage of the poem, Unferth, another warrior at Hrothgar’s court, attacks Beowulf’s claims of heroism (page 27).  Why is this passage important to the poem?  How is what he says—and how Beowulf responds to it—dramatically compelling?  You might also consider what this episode says about the culture of the Anglo Saxons and its heroes (and where we've heard this in previous poems). 

* Which poems that we've read seem to most remind you of these passages of Beowulf? Do you think the Beowulf poet was writing in an earlier time (around Deor, The Seafarer, Wulf and Eadwacer) or was he writing in a somewhat later age, such as the poets who wrote The Riddles and The Maxims? Why might we think so? 

* How does the poet use kennings or metaphors to create an experience similar to what we discovered last time in the Riddles? In other words, how is he challenging us to see the mundane Anglo Saxon world—a world of weapons, boats, men, women, and weather—in a new and poetic light? Why is this satisfying even for a modern-day reader?

* In Beowulf we encounter the concept of fate (the Anglo-Saxon wyrd) meany times, as when Beowulf says, "Fate goeth ever as she must!" (26).  How might we understand what the Anglo-Saxons meant by fate in this instance (and others in the poem)?  Is fate “God” and His decisions?  Is fate related to a Norse/Greek conception of destiny?  Or is it simply luck or random chance?