Heroic Identity in the World of Beowulf

Erscheinungsjahr 2008
ISBN: 978-90-04-17170-1
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 2, 420 Seiten, Format (B × H): 165 mm x 244 mm, Gewicht: 839 g

Reihe: Medieval and Renaissance Authors and Texts

Readers 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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gwara, Scott

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements
Author’s note
Abbreviations

Introduction: A contested Beowulf
1. The Wisdom context of the Sigemund Heremod and Hunferd Digression
2. The Foreign Beowulf and the ‘fight at Finssburch’
3. The Rhetoric of Oferhygd in Hrodgar’s “Sermon”
4. Beowulf’s Dargon fight and the Appraisal of Oferhygd
5. King Beowulf and Ealdormonn Byrhtnod
Conclusion

Bibliography
Indices

Über Autor(innen)

Scott Gwara, PhD (Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, 1993) teaches Old and Middle English, Medieval Latin, and Epic at the University of South Carolina. The author of five books, he publishes widely on manuscripts, Latin literature, and bilingual learning in pre-Conquest England.