Current Search: English poetry--Old English, ca 450-1100--History and criticism (x)
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Title
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Grendles Modor: Representation in a linguistic landscape.
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Creator
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Ciufo, Patience Corinne., Florida Atlantic University, Faraci, Mary
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Abstract/Description
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Beowulf has inspired readers and listeners since the eighth century, first as a performance then as a written poem. It is an epic tale of Anglo-Saxon warriors, life, and history. Recently, studies of Beowulf have introduced questions of twentieth-century gender stereotypes that provide a new understanding of the epic's characters and themes. However, these studies have delivered too simple a reading of complex characters like Grendel's mother and have led scholarship away from the poem. To...
Show moreBeowulf has inspired readers and listeners since the eighth century, first as a performance then as a written poem. It is an epic tale of Anglo-Saxon warriors, life, and history. Recently, studies of Beowulf have introduced questions of twentieth-century gender stereotypes that provide a new understanding of the epic's characters and themes. However, these studies have delivered too simple a reading of complex characters like Grendel's mother and have led scholarship away from the poem. To bring critics back to the poem, this study attempts to make the poem a landscape. When the total landscape, the language, style, alliteration, and violence (physical and emotional), is studied, the poem is opened up to more than just simple readings. In a landscape reading, Grendel's mother becomes a force strong enough to disrupt the structure of the language and to battle the barriers between female and male, warrior and monster, and pagan and nonpagan. A landscape that is as violent as the characters is discovered, one in which all life is celebrated.
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Date Issued
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1998
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PURL
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http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15542
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Subject Headings
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Beowulf--Characters, English poetry--Old English, ca 450-1100--History and criticism, Stereotype (Psychology) in literature, Sex role in literature
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Format
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Document (PDF)
