This document contains various lecture notes, summaries of other texts in the Beowulf manuscript, and summaries of secondary literature, including the introduction to Klaeber's Beowulf (4th edition). It does not contain a summary of the poem itself, but should be used as a way to get more context ...
Beowulf
Please note that this is NOT a summary of Beowulf the poem.
You can read the poem yourself in translation here, you’ll finish
it in no-time & it is very enjoyable. If you truly need a summary,
OSP has a pretty fun video about the poem over on YouTube.
This document is for context only. It contains lecture notes
on the poem and summaries of secondary readings [see
‘Contents’ below]. It does not contain a summary of Beowulf
the poem.
Contents
Lectures.................................................................................................................................................4
Lecture I.............................................................................................................................................4
Manuscript.....................................................................................................................................4
Audience........................................................................................................................................4
Heremot.........................................................................................................................................4
Alterity...........................................................................................................................................4
Lecture II............................................................................................................................................5
Who Is the Monster (and Who Is the Man?)..................................................................................5
Sources & Analogues.....................................................................................................................5
Lecture III...........................................................................................................................................7
Liberum Monstrum........................................................................................................................7
The Wonders of the East................................................................................................................7
Grendel’s [Mother’s] Mere............................................................................................................8
Grendel’s Mother..........................................................................................................................9
Lecture IV.........................................................................................................................................10
Dragon.........................................................................................................................................10
Sins...............................................................................................................................................10
Feuds...........................................................................................................................................10
Which Values?.............................................................................................................................11
Who is the Other?........................................................................................................................11
Secondary Readings.............................................................................................................................12
‘Introduction’ from Klaeber’s Beowulf, fourth edition – Fulk, Bjork & Niles....................................12
Manuscript...................................................................................................................................12
Grendel & Mum...........................................................................................................................12
There Be Dragons.........................................................................................................................13
,Table of Contents & Disclaimer 2
Baldr............................................................................................................................................13
Beow............................................................................................................................................13
History.........................................................................................................................................14
Danes...........................................................................................................................................14
The Geats & Swedes....................................................................................................................15
Christianity...................................................................................................................................16
Structure......................................................................................................................................16
Themes........................................................................................................................................17
Narration.....................................................................................................................................17
Language......................................................................................................................................17
Archaeology.................................................................................................................................17
Genre & Audience........................................................................................................................18
‘The Monsters and the Critics’ – J. R. R. Tolkien...............................................................................19
The State of Criticism...................................................................................................................19
Monsters......................................................................................................................................19
What Beowulf Is And Isn’t............................................................................................................20
‘The Plinian Races’, Chapter 1 from The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought – Friedman
[tw: racism]......................................................................................................................................21
‘A Measure of Man’, Chapter 2 from The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought –
Friedman [tw: racism]......................................................................................................................23
‘Grettir and Grendel Again’, chapter 6 from Pride and Prodigies – Orchard....................................24
‘The Question of the Origin of the Grendel Story’, Chapter 10 from Beowulf and the Celtic
Tradition – Puhvel............................................................................................................................26
Parallels between Beowulf and ‘The Hand and the Child’............................................................26
Differences between Beowulf and ‘The Hand and the Child’.......................................................27
Grendel’s Mother........................................................................................................................27
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................27
Liber Monstrum...............................................................................................................................28
Prologue.......................................................................................................................................28
Book 1..........................................................................................................................................28
Epilogue.......................................................................................................................................30
Prologue.......................................................................................................................................30
Book 2..........................................................................................................................................30
Book 3..........................................................................................................................................30
Epilogue.......................................................................................................................................31
‘The Liber Monstrum’, chapter 4 from Pride and Prodigies – Orchard.............................................32
,Table of Contents & Disclaimer 3
Sources........................................................................................................................................32
Hygelac........................................................................................................................................32
The Wonders of the East..................................................................................................................33
‘Man-Eating Monsters and Ants as Big as Dogs’ – Kim....................................................................35
Dual Fears....................................................................................................................................35
Allegory........................................................................................................................................35
Profit............................................................................................................................................35
Invasion........................................................................................................................................35
Alexander’s Letter to Aristotle..........................................................................................................37
‘The Alexander-Legend in Anglo-Saxon England’, Chapter 5 from Pride and Prodigies – Orchard. .39
, Lecture Notes II 4
Lectures
Lecture I
Manuscript
On each of Cotton’s bookshelves was a bust of a Roman emperor. This manuscript was on
the first shelf (A) as the 15th manuscript (XV) of the bookcase that had a bust of Emperor
Vitellius, giving the collection its name, Cotton MS Vitellius A XV.
Audience
Who wrote it? Aristocrats had their own churches, so maybe a cleric for their aristocratic
audience? A monastic audience is possible, most people believe it was composed by one
person.
Heremot
Heremot was the ruler before Scyld, he was a bad, stingy ruler. And he didn’t have children,
so Scyld (a foundling) became king and he was a good king & got a son.
Alterity
Alterity is something that is not our own, and helps us define and demarcate our identity.
There is inclusion and exclusion. It can be inter-cultural, inter-personal, inner-cultural, inner-
personal etc. We also have a sense of alterity with ourselves. 1 There are different levels of
alterity, something can be really different or just a little bit. For example, the Danish culture
and Anglo-Saxon culture was quite different in some ways, but also very much the same in
many ways. So in some ways, there would have been alterity, and in others there wouldn’t.
But then when is someone a real Other? Levinas says that the real Other can not be
comprehended, no appropriation or totalisation possible. But then what is an Other? Then
God also wouldn’t be an Other, because we appropriate Him in the Bible where He speaks.
Edmund Husserl said that you can never understand the Other, but the experience of the
Other is ‘verifiable access to what is originally inaccessible’. So, for example, literary
interpretation. You read a book, and then you give your own interpretation which you
properly argue, to make it verifiable. But we can never completely appropriate the Other.
The monsters in the Librum Monstrum are radical Others, but not absolute Others. We can
still comprehend them, even though we are not them. Some of them are completely
fictional, and others are attempts at making sense of general Others.
Physical deformities were believed to also mean mental deformities.
1
When you sometimes thing ‘oh why did I say that’ etc: you don’t really know yourself as well as you want
to/think.
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