Class Recap: September 15, 2016

Old English Poetics and Heroic Poetry

Today we talked about Old English poetics, including the use of alliteration and the meter of the alliterative half-line and other stylistic features, like kennings, the beasts of battle motif, repetition and variation, epithets, allusiveness, and litotes. The second half of class included our discussion of Old English heroic poetry, including "The Battle of Brunanburh," "The Finnsburh Fragment," and "The Battle of Maldon." Next week, we start Beowulf.

Homework:

Readings in the Broadview Anthology:

• Beowulf, lines 1-1049. Please use this translation, as translations vary widely. It is available online at the library here, if you do not have your book yet, but please get your book as soon as possible so we can all look at the same pages and line numbers.

Additional readings:

• Background: Roy Liuzza's "Introduction" to his translation of Beowulf (and the end here--it got cut off when I copied it)

Please upload a reading response to the Dropbox labeled "Response 3 - September 20 or 22" before class on Tuesday or Thursday.

Weekly Writing Prompt - September 20:

Choose one of the following prompts and write 1-2 pages addressing it; please upload your response by class time on the day on which we are discussing those prompts. Please indicate which prompt you are answering, or if you are writing on another topic.

1) In his introduction to the poem, Roy Liuzza says, "Kingdoms and successions, alliances and truces, loyalties, and the tragically transient stability of heroic society are the poem's somber subtext, a theme traced less in the clashes of the battlefield than in the patterns of marriage and kin, in stories remembered and retold, in allusion and digression and pointed foreshadowing" (Liuzza 16). Considering the lines we are reading for Tuesday, can you see the poet addressing "the tragically transient stability of heroic society"? How does the poet portray that society? Through which patterns, stories, allusion, digression, or foreshadowing do you see this? Please refer to specific examples or quote specific lines to support your arguments.

2) The first monster that we encounter is Grendel. Monster theory says that monsters always mean something; the word comes from Latin "demonstrare," to show. Monsters embody cultural anxieties, fears, or even hopes or desires. What, then, do you think Grendel embodies or shows? Please refer to specific examples or quote specific lines to support your arguments.

3) Liuzza says that Beowulf "springs, quite precisely, from the intersection of myth and history" (Liuzza 19). How do you see these two elements--myth and history--intersecting, interacting, contradicting, etc., in the poem? Please refer to specific examples or quote specific lines to support your arguments.

4) How do you see paganism and Christianity present in the poem--interacting, contradicting, at odds, one layer over another? There are many ways to conceptualize this: how would you describe it? Please refer to specific examples or quote specific lines to support your arguments.

Other Notes:

• I have not yet heard from those people doing the Article Precis assignment next week; please send me the article you've chosen ASAP and remember that you need to confirm it with me at least one week in advance.
• View today's Powerpoint here.