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Beowulf, Grendel, and Intertextuality: reading an Anglo-Saxon epic through a postmodern novel

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Beowulf Anglo-Saxon epic oral components Transcribed (or composed) by a monk Verse qualities kennings alliteration caesura Structure two part three part Digressions (interlace) Reconstructed 7 th century helmut, Sutton Hoo, Suffolk, England. Now in British Museum.

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Anglo-Saxon Culture Warrior Culture comitatus thane wergeld scop FATE (weird) Christianity direct references to Hebrew stories indirect allusions to Christian narrative PROVIDENCE ( God ) 7 th C. Shield, reconstructed from objects found at Sutton Hoo. Now in British Museum.

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Issues or tensions Violence and Revenge (loyalty run amok) Sapience vs. Fortitude Celebration of courage, mourning of cultural loss Exchange of wealth, traffic in women Relationship between creation and destruction Gold and enamel belt buckle found at Sutton Hoo. Now in British Museum.

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Understanding Genre Definition not a static system of literary types but a dynamic, flexible set of features that aid the processes of creation and interpretation of literature Distinctions Genre (drama, narrative, lyric) Subgenre (epic, novel; primary epic, secondary epic) Mixed genre Mode - qualities of a genre that can be carried into other settings (i.e., epic scale/themes in Star Wars) Conventions Level of diction, tone Expected content Typical characters/plots Range of themes or topics (topoi) [see Alistair Fowler, Types of Literature]

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Epic Purpose Art works. Late twentieth-century interpretations of literature focus on how it (the work of art) functions within society. According to these approaches, genres have purposes and emerge/adapt to meet needs in society. Authors work within limitations Of language Of culture Of memes meme -- wikipedia Epic, like myth and legend, develops to help a culture solidify its sense of identity How do we define the group? [Whos in, whos out? What stories define our history?] How should we behave toward each other? [What are our obligations to one another? What qualities should men and women posses? -- how do we define virtue?] Are there powers beyond our own, and, if so, how do we relate to them?

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Epic Conventions based on study of classical Greco-Latin texts Hero of elevated stature, national or international importance Unified action Involvement of gods in medias res [ab ovo] Elevated style Vast setting Invocation to muse [absent] Epic question Epic similes [kennings] Catalogs [absent] Formal speeches Set pieces [battles, banquets, inserted songs] Epithets [kennings] Trip to underworld katabasis Homecoming -- nostos Objective, narrative voice

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Part I: Slaying of Grendel Preliminaries 1-48 Scyld Scefing Isolation/consolation Civics lesson Guard/ward Ship burial & Sutton Hoo Current Archeology -- Sutton Hoo Current Archeology -- Sutton Hoo The Problem 48-169 Hrothgars mead hall heorot arouses Grendels envy Legal constraints (l. 66) Foreboding tone (l. 75ff) Caedmons (79-90)pp. 116, 117 in our text, Bedes History Grendels arrival spawn of Cain; but compare lines 108- 110 with 8-11 Ironic understatement 122ff Christian interpolation 156ff

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Part I, cont. Beowulfs arrival courtesies among warriors Departure and journey (170- 190) Arrival and greeting of coastguard 191-285 News announced to Hrothgar 286-364 Beowulfs first beot 365-405 Hrothgars response 406-437 Unferths response (Breca) 438-544 Wealtheows appearance (546- 578) Dont let the bedbugs bite 594- 629

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Part I, cont. Battle and Victory The monsters defeat Girt with Gods anger Cruel laughter Grappling with Beowulf Singing despair Shielder of men cleanses Heorot Lay of Sigemund Magnificat Unferths silence

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Part II: Grendels Mother Opening passage: physical cleansing and moral warning leaves small opening for free will Treason and treachery Celebration or mourning? Lay of the Finnsburg Wealtheows worries An awful reversal The border-dwellers Aeschere is dead: trophy displayed Beowulfs katabasis and battle Hrothgars sermon Beowulfs nostos

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Intertextuality An illustration Whats your field, Mr. McGarrigle? Well, I did my research on Shakespeare and T. S. Eliot, said Persse. I could have helped you with that, Dempsey butted in.... It would just lend itself nicely to computerization.... All youd have to do would be to put the texts on to tape and you could get the computer to list every word, phrase and syntactitcal construction that the two writers had in common. You could precisely quantify the influence of Shakespeare on T. S. Eliot. But my thesis isnt about that, said Persse. Its about the influence of T. S. Eliot on Shakespeare. --David Lodge, Small World A definition a textual strategy which invites, and directs, a double-focused response or interreading a poetics of relational writing that demands a strategy of relational reading A methodology lying somewhere between source studies and cultural semiotics the pervasive method by which twentieth century writing articulates its sense of history, its awareness of its dependence on an infinity of texts dj lus, at the same time as it declares its conditional, ironic, independence a style of writing on a tightrope between exhaustion and replenishment -- Andreas Hfele, Twentieth-Century Intertextuality and the Reading of Shakespeares Sources

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Grendel reading Beowulf Sites of intertextuality in our reading: Beowulfs story and the lays about previous Danes, Geats, or Finns Beowulf and Rood/Caedmon/Genesis/Gospels Grendel and Beowulf Grendel and King Lear, The Wasteland walking a tightrope between exhaustion and replenishment

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Interlacing Design Structure [event] Shield Sheafsons ship burial Hrothgar builds Heorot Grendel begins attacks Grendel as descendent of Cain Beowulf arrives Breca digression Beowulf defeats Grendel Sigemund slays dragon, is replaced by Heremond Hrothgar rewards Beowulf Lay of the Finnsburg Content [significance] Underscores the transitory nature of success; foreshadows ending Dual versions of Breca contest emphasize need for interpretation; associate matter of Cain with betrayal of kin Sapience and strength: or is it cunning? What price glory? What is a good king? Forshadows ending Foreshadows Heorots second decline, which occurs outside the narrative but is known to the original audience.

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Interlacing Design Beowulfs story is interrupted by numerous digressions. Each plays a role in foreshadowing the action of the epic or developing its philosophic tone. Poetic features reinforce the interlacing design as alliteration ties two halves of the line (separated by the caesura) together. --Style recapitulates structure

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Beowulf and Rood/Caedmon/Bible Dream of the Rood and original sin Cain and murder Adam and forbidden knowledge Creation direct quotation of familiar poem reinforces concept/role of scop Old vs. New Testaments direct allusions to Cain indirect allusions to Mary, Beowulf as Christ figure begins with genealogy

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Interlacing design: Grendel and Beowulf Grendel as epic in medias res epic similes or, at least, lots of similes low language, bathos epic theme: pain/stupidity of my idiotic war anti-hero Dialectic structure nihilistic, pattern-makers victim of prejudice, scape- goat Christ-figure Beowulf as epic ab ovo kennings, alliteration, litotes epic tone epic theme: hero as center of national identity superhero Cyclic structure elegaic tone: celebration/loss Pre-christian, heroic sacrifice

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Interlacing design: Grendel, King Lear, and Wasteland Examples from Chapters 1-4 zodiac April is the cruelest month [Ch. 1; Eliot] elderly, slow-witted king [5; Lear] the grasses peek up... the children of the dead [7; Eliot] if he had sons, they wouldnt hear his words. They would weigh his silver and his gold in their minds. [53; Lear] nihil ex nihilo [Lear, Augustine] Resulting Significance cycle of violence, tone of Wasteland chronic problem of succession in Beowulf cycle still present in Europe WWI, cold war, Balkans universalizes generation gap emphasizes theme of creation, (poetry), nihilism(violence)

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Grendel and Beowulf Defend endings of Beowulf and Grendel Criteria: appropriateness to content, structure, genre, purpose of author, means of production Contrast narrative voices of Beowulf, Grendel, Dream of Rood Debate: Mor(t)ality and Heroism Introduce elements and themes of medieval romance (chivalry, courtly love, honor/shame, myth/archetype)

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Something will come of all this... The things we havent talked enough about: In Beowulf Beowulf and Unferths relationship after the slaying of Grendel Beowulfs honor and loyalty when he returns home [2165 ff, 2367 ff The theme of the last survivor ubi sunt [2235 ff, Wiglaf 2813 Dragon as dignified, worthy opponent [2270 ff.] In Grendel Unferths brand of heroism; Grendels relationship to him [Grendel : Unferth _______ : Grendel] Wealtheow: beauty married to dignity and goodness. Why does Grendel have to rob her of dignity? Is her heroism of a lesser degree or different kind than male heroism? How does she relate to Grendels mother? quality of life

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Nihil ex nihilo doesnt mean that something cant come from something else... Beowulf becomes self- reflective [2325 ff] Eloquent expressions of grief and mourning [revision of the Cain narrative, 2435 ff; Beowulfs death, Bargain metaphor: life for hoard (?) or weirgild [2415, 2799, 2843 What is a man worth? [2600, 2635, 2651 Scorpio, Hrothulf, anarchism, state monopoly on violence119, kindness 120, indignity 122 Sagitarius, rumors of angels 133 Things fade, alternatives exclude, nothing is lost The shaper is sick; it is the business of goats to climb 139, 132 courtly love affair nothing came of it (?) 144 were on our own again 146, 149

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But what? Why, what you will... The hoard Beowulfs comfort 2750, 2799, but ineffective 3015 Expecting the worst 2884, 2999, 3150 Tone: elegaic, praising the passing vir-tues of a lost, heroic age Strangers have come by water beware the fish walking dead men like trees Sing of walls 171 voluntary tumble, death-grip, accident Alternatives exclude: choice or synthesis? Tone:

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Grendel reading Beowulf: the big questions Can the arts make a difference? What of mor(t)ality? Do we murder each other more gently because in the woods sweet songbirds sing?