106-208 Beowulf

Note

Available as 106-308 at 3rd-year level.

Credit Points

Coordinator

Prerequisites

106-224/324 Introductory Old English Language and Literature.

Semester

Contact

Subject Description

This is an advanced course in Old English in which the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf will be read in the original. Students completing this subject successfully will have achieved a deeper understanding of the subtleties of Old English, enabling them to perceive rhetorical figures, formal structures and narrative strategies in medieval literature; will have an understanding of the perceived essential elements of Western epic and of how new works in the tradition draw upon and/or work against generic expectation; and will have studied the impact of Christianity on the traditional pagan Germanic heroic ethos.

Assessment

Written work of up to 5000 words.

Prescribed Texts

• L Wren, Beowulf. Rev W F Bolton Exeter U P.