The Epic as Genre
Epics are stories created by poets to give an entire people a sense of their history and their destiny. As stories that give shape and coherence to the collective myth of a culture, epics engage the figure of the epic hero or heroine, who either breaks through the conventional wisdom of the people or re-establishes their most profound wishes. Beowulf: An Epic in Old English Composed toward the end of the first millennium of our era, Beowulf is the elegiac narrative of the adventures of Beowulf, a Scandinavian hero who saves the Danes from the seemingly invincible monster Grendel and, later, from Grendel's mother. He then returns to his own country and dies in old age in a vivid fight against a dragon. The poem is about encountering the monstrous, defeating it, and then having to live on in the exhausted aftermath. The poem was written in England but the events it describes are set in Scandinavia, in a "once upon a time" that is partly historical. It was somewhere in England that this formerly oral legend was at last transcribed onto paper (vellum, specifically) and thus became "fixed" in the form we have it today. By the lights of the late Irish poet Seamus Heaney, who penned a remarkable translation of the poem, Beowulf is "a work of the greatest imaginative vitality, a masterpiece where the structuring of the tale is as elaborate as the beautiful contrivances of its language" (ix). |
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
FOCUS STANDARDS
- Identify and explain the elements of an epic poem.
- Identify and explain the characteristics of an epic hero.
- Analyze the relationship between myths or legends and epic poetry.
- Examine the historical context of literary works.
- Compare and contrast how related themes may be treated in different genres (here, epic poetry and contemporary nonfiction).
- Hone effective listening skills during oral presentations and class discussions.
FOCUS STANDARDS
- RL.9-10.1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
- RL.9-10.3: Key Ideas and Details: Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.
- W.9-10.1: Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
- W.9-10.6: Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technology's capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically.
- W.9-10.9: Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
LITERARY TEXTS
Epic
INFORMATIONAL TEXTS |
OTHER MEDIA
Online Resources
Online Resources
- Beowulf Resources: A superb online archive of various links concerning the poem and authorship of Beowulf, as well as general topics in Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian literature, culture, and history.
- Digital Manuscript of the Beowulf Manuscript: The fourth edition of Electronic Beowulf 4.0 is a free, online version of Electronic Beowulf that supersedes all previous editions. The online edition is designed to meet the needs of general readers, who require a full, line by line, translation; of students, who want to understand the grammar and the meter and still have time in a semester to study and appreciate other important aspects of the poem; and of scholars, who want immediate access to a critical apparatus identifying the nearly 2000 eighteenth-century restorations, editorial emendations, and manuscript-based conjectural restorations.
- Alfano, Christine. "The Issue of Feminine Monstrosity: A Reevaluation of Grendel's Mother." Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 23.1 (1992): 1-16. Print.
- Bayeux Tapestry Museum
- Sutton Hoo Society
- Complete Collection of Anglo-Saxon Poetry
- Yeager, Robert F. "Why Read Beowulf?" Humanities 20:2 (1999).
- Ward, Christie. "The Beasts of Battle: Wolf, Eagle, and Raven in Germanic Poetry." The Viking Answer Lady. 10 October 2014. Web.
TERMINOLOGY
Alliterative verse
Anglo-Saxon Biblical allusion Caesura Commitatus Compounding Elegy Epic |
Epic hero
Formulas Hero's journey Kenning Nowell Codex Old English Oral Tradition Riddle |
Scop
Thane Variation Vikings Wergild Wyrd |
IMAGE GALLERY
Click on images to enlarge.
Click on images to enlarge.
AUDIOBOOK GALLERY.
Beowulf Part 1
Lines 1- 1250 (pp. 3 - 88) Translated and Narrated by Seamus Heaney |
Beowulf Part 2
Lines 1251 - 2199 (pp. 89 - 149) Translated and Narrated by Seamus Heaney |
Beowulf Part 3
Lines 2200 - 3182 (pp. 150 - 213)
Translated and Narrated by Seamus Heaney
Lines 2200 - 3182 (pp. 150 - 213)
Translated and Narrated by Seamus Heaney
VIDEO GALLERY
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The World of Beowulf (12m 30s)
A Video Lecture |
In Search of Beowulf (59m)
A BBC Documentary by Michael Wood |