Anthology of Beowulf Criticism, The

Lewis E. Nicholson

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Year: 1991
• Print ISBN:
  9780268000066
  9780268170530
• eBook ISBN:
  9780268074500
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Medieval & Early Modern Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Was the Beowulf-poet a Christian or was he a noble pagan whose outlook had been only slightly colored by exposure to Christian thinking? This is but one of the fascinating topics discussed in this anthology of criticism on the early medieval masterpiece. The eighteen contribution to the anthology are arranged chronologically according to the date of the criticism's first publication. The outstanding scholars whose critical writing is presented here range from the turn-of-the-century critic F. A. Blackburn through the Englishman J. R. R. Tolkien to such contemporaries as Kemp Malone, Morton Bloomfield, and R. E. Kaske. Nearly every aspect of the Beowulf is discussed and controverted in terms of literary analysis. Old English, Old Norse, Latin, and Old French passages are translated in the accompanying text as an aid to undergraduate students meeting Beowulf for the first time.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• PREFACE
• 1. THE CHRISTIAN COLORING IN THE BEOWULF*
• 2. THE HEROIC AGE, AN EXCERPT*
• 3. THE IDEAL OF KINGSHIP IN BEOWULF*
• 4. BEOWULF: THE MONSTERS AND THE CRITICS*
• 5. THE RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLE IN BEOWULF*
• 6. BEOWULF*
• 7. BEOWULF AND CHRISTIAN ALLEGORY: AN INTERPRETATION OF UNFERTH*
• 8. THE DOCTRINE OF CHARITY IN MEDIAEVAL LITERARY GARDENS: A TOPICAL APPROACH THROUGH SYMBOLISM AND ALLEGORY
• 9. THE ORAL-FORMULAIC CHARACTER OF ANGLO-SAXON NARRATIVE POETRY*
• 10. BEOWULF AND THE LITURGY*
• 11. BEOWULF'S THREE GREAT FIGHTS*
• 12. GOOD AND EVIL; LIGHT AND DARKNESS; JOY AND SORROW IN BEOWULF*
• 13. SAPIENTIA ET FORTITUDO AS THE CONTROLLING THEME OF BEOWULF*
• 14. SUTTON HOO AND BEOWULF*
• 15. BEOWULF-AN ALLEGORY OF SALVATION?*
• 16. THE BEOWULF POET*
• 17. PATRISTICS AND OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE: NOTES ON SOME POEMS*
• 18. THE CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE IN BEOWULF*