'Interpretations of Beowulf' brings together over six decades of literary scholarship. Illustrating a variety of interpretative schools, the essays not only deal with most of the major issues of 'Beowulf' criticism, including structure, style, genre, and theme, but also offer the sort of explanations of particular passages that are invaluable to a careful reading of a poem. This up-to-date collection of significant critical approaches fills a long-standing need for a companion volume for the study of the poem. Larger patterns in the history of Beowulf criticism are also traceable in the chronological order of the collection.
Author(s): Robert D. Fulk (ed.)
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Year: 1991
Language: English
Pages: 304
City: Bloomington
PREFACE ix
BERTHA S. PHILLPOTTS / Wyrd and Providence in Anglo-Saxon Thought (1928) 1
J. R. R. TOLKIEN / 'Beowulf': The Monsters and the Critics (1936) 14
FRANCIS P. MAGOUN, JR. / The Oral-Formulaic Character of Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry (1953) 45
ARTHUR GILCHRIST BRODEUR / Variation (1959) 66
M. B. McNAMEE, S. J. / 'Beowulf' — An Allegory of Salvation? (1960) 88
MARGARET E. GOLDSMITH / The Christian Perspective in 'Beowulf' (1962) 103
STANLEY B. GREENFIELD / Geatish History: Poetic Art and Epic Quality in 'Beowulf' (1963) 120
RICHARD N. RINGLER / 'Him sēo wēn gelēah': The Design for Irony in Grendel’s Last Visit to Heorot (1966) 127
JOHN LEYERLE / The Interlace Structure of 'Beowulf' (1967) 146
EDWARD B. IRVING, JR. / The Text of Fate (1968) 168
T. A. SHIPPEY / The Ironic Background (1972) 194
GEOFFREY R. RUSSOM / Artful Avoidance of the Useful Phrase in 'Beowulf', 'The Battle of Maldon', and 'Fates of the Apostles' (1978) 206
THEODORE M. ANDERSSON / Tradition and Design in 'Beowulf' (1980) 219
JOSEPH HARRIS / 'Beowulf' in Literary History (1982) 235
LAURENCE N. DE LOOZE / Frame Narratives and Fictionalization: Beowulf as Narrator (1984) 242
JANE CHANCE / Grendel's Mother as Epic Anti-Type of the Virgin and Queen (1986) 251
JOHN C. POPE / 'Beowulf' 505, 'gehedde', and the Pretensions of Unferth (1986) 264
INDEX OF LINES AND PASSAGES IN 'BEOWULF' QUOTED OR DISCUSSED 277
