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Grendles Modor: Representation in a linguistic landscape

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Date Issued:
1998
Summary:
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 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.
Title: Grendles Modor: Representation in a linguistic landscape.
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Name(s): Ciufo, Patience Corinne.
Florida Atlantic University, Degree grantor
Faraci, Mary, Thesis advisor
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Issuance: monographic
Date Issued: 1998
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Place of Publication: Boca Raton, Fla.
Physical Form: application/pdf
Extent: 49 p.
Language(s): English
Summary: 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 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.
Identifier: 9780591769623 (isbn), 15542 (digitool), FADT15542 (IID), fau:12303 (fedora)
Collection: FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
Note(s): Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1998.
Subject(s): Beowulf--Characters
English poetry--Old English, ca 450-1100--History and criticism
Stereotype (Psychology) in literature
Sex role in literature
Held by: Florida Atlantic University Libraries
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15542
Sublocation: Digital Library
Use and Reproduction: Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder.
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Host Institution: FAU
Is Part of Series: Florida Atlantic University Digital Library Collections.