Bringing contemporary critical theory to bear on Beowulf, the author explores the literary originality of a poem often treated as oral and traditional. He grounds his work in three axioms about Beowulf. First, the poem cannot be dated with certainty and must be considered a portrait of an imaginary society. Second, the epic, a long narrative poem of the heroic age, is not necessarily a traditional genre. And third, there is no reason to believe that Beowulf was anything more than a fictitious hero invented by the poet. The first half of the book examines the literary treatment of such...
Bringing contemporary critical theory to bear on Beowulf, the author explores the literary originality of a poem often treated as oral and traditional...