Not all of these are available in our library, but I’ve tried to make sure that all of the topics have at least one item easily available to you.
1. Creating Beowulf
[visit the British Museum and look at the Beowulf-manuscript, or visit its web-site (http://minos.bl.uk/index.html) or see the facsimile edition: Julius Zupitza, Beowulf, 2nd ed., EETS 245 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959).
Frantzen, Allen J. Desire for Origins: New Language, Old English, and Teaching the Tradition. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990. ch. 6, ‘Reading the Unreadable Beowulf’, pp. 168-200.
Kiernan, Kevin S. Beowulf and the Beowulf Manuscript. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1981.
Klaeber, F., ed. Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg. 3rd ed. (Boston, 1950). pp. ix-lxviii, cii-cxxiv.
McGann, Jerome J. A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.
McGann, Jerome J. ‘The Monks and the Giants: Textual and Bibliographical Studies and the Interpretation of Literary Works’. In Textual Criticism and Literary Interpretation. Ed. Jerome J. McGann. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. pp. 180-99.
Newton, Sam. The Origins of Beowulf and the Pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia. Cambridge: Brewer, 1993.
Niles, John D. Beowulf: The Poem and its Tradition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983.
O’Brien O’Keeffe, Katherine. Visible Song: Transitional Literacy in Old English Verse. CSASE 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Tolkien, J. R. R. ‘Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics’. Proceedings of the British Academy 22 (1936): 245-95. repr. in An Anthology of Beowulf Criticism. Notre Dame and London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1963. 51-103. also repr. in Modern Critical Interpretations: Beowulf. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
Tripp, Raymond P., Jr. More About the Fight with the Dragon: Beowulf 2208b-3182, Commentary, Edition, and Translation. Lanham: University Press of America, 1983.
2. Context
Bolton, W. F. Alcuin and Beowulf: An Eighth-Century View. London: Edward Arnold, 1979.
Chase, Colin, ed. The Dating of Beowulf. 2nd ed. Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 1997.
Frank, Roberta. ‘The Beowulf Poet’s Sense of History’. In The Wisdom of Poetry: Essays in Early English Literature in Honor of Morton W. Bloomfield. Eds. Larry D. Benson and Siegfried Wenzel. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute, 1982. 53-65.
Robinson, Fred C. Beowulf and the Appositive Style. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1985.
Stanley, Eric Gerald. The Search for Anglo-Saxon Paganism. Cambridge: Brewer, 1975.
Whallon, William, Margaret Goldsmith, and Charles Donahue. ‘Allegorical, Typological or Neither? Three Short Papers on the Allegorical Approach to Beowulf and a Discussion’. Anglo-Saxon England 2 (1973): 285-302.
Whitelock, Dorothy. The Audience of Beowulf. Oxford: Clarendon, 1951.
3. Sources and Analogues
Brynteson, William E. ‘Beowulf, Monsters, and Manuscripts: Classical Associations’. Res Publica Litterarum: Studies in the Classical Tradition 5 (1982): 41-57.
Garmonsway, G. N. and Jacqueline Simpson. Beowulf and its Analogues. London: J. M. Dent, 1968.
Lapidge, Michael. ‘Beowulf, Aldhelm, the Liber Monstrorum and Wessex’. Studi Medievali 23 (1982): 151-92.
Orchard, Andy. Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf-Manuscript. Cambridge: Brewer, 1995.
Puhvel, Martin. Beowulf and the Celtic Tradition. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1979.
Roper, Alan H. ‘Boethius and the Three Fates of Beowulf’. Philological Quarterly 41 (1962): 386-400.
Stitt, J. Michael. Beowulf and the Bear’s Son: Epic, Saga, and Fairytale in Northern Germanic Tradition. London: Garland, 1992.
Wachsler, Arthur A. ‘Grettir’s Fight with a Bear; Another Neglected Analogue of Beowulf in the Grettis Sag[a] Ásmundarsonar’. ES 66 (1985): 381-90.
Whitbread, L. G. ‘The Liber Monstrorum and Beowulf’. Mediaeval Studies 36 (1974): 434-71.
4. Poetic Form
Bäuml, Franz H. ‘The Theory of Oral-Formulaic Composition and the Written Medieval Text’. In Comparative Research on Oral Traditions: A Memorial for Milman Parry. Ed. John Miles Foley. Columbus, OH: Slavica, 1987.
Bonjour, Adrien. ‘Beowulf and the Beasts of Battle’. PMLA 72 (1957): 563-73.
Bonjour, Adrien. ‘The Digressions in Beowulf: The Finn and Heathobards Episodes’. In Old English Literature: Twenty-two Analytical Essays. Eds. Martin Stevens and Jerome Mandel. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1968. 319-27.
Brodeur, Arthur Gilchrist. The Art of Beowulf. 1959. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960.
Eliason, Norman E. ‘The ‘Improvised Lay’ in Beowulf’. Philological Quarterly 31 (1952): 171-79.
Foley, John Miles. Oral-Formulaic Theory and Research: An Introduction and Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1985.
Sisam, Kenneth. The Structure of Beowulf. Oxford: Clarendon, 1965.
5. Feminism and Women-oriented Readings
Belanoff, P. ‘The Fall(?) of the Old English Female Poetic Image’. PMLA 104 (1989): 822-31.
Chance, Jane. ‘The Structural Unity of Beowulf: The Problem of Grendel’s Mother’. In New Readings on Women in Old English Literature. Eds. Helen Damico and Alexandra Hennessey Olsen. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990. 248-61.
Chance, Jane. Woman as Hero in Old English Literature. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986.
Enright, M. J. ‘The Lady with a Mead-Cup: Ritual, Group Cohesion and Hierarchy in the Germanic Warband’. Frühmittelalterliche Studien 22 (1988), 170-203.
Hill, Joyce. ‘"Þæt wæs geomuru ides!" A Female Stereotype Examined’. In New Readings on Women in Old English Literature. Eds. Helen Damico and Alexandra Hennessey Olsen. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990. 235-47.
Magennis, Hugh. Images of Community in Old English Poetry. CSASE 18. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. ch. 5.
Overing, Gillian R. Language, Sign, and Gender in Beowulf. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990. ch. 3.
Sklute, L. John. ‘Freoðuwebbe in Old English Poetry’. In New Readings on Women in Old English Literature. Eds. Helen Damico and Alexandra Hennessey Olsen. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990. 204-10.
Temple, Mary Kay. ‘Beowulf 1258-1266: Grendel’s Lady-Mother’. English Language Notes 23.3 (1986): 10-15.
6. Grammatica
Irvine, Martin. ‘Medieval Textuality and the Archaeology of Textual Culture’. In Speaking Two Languages: Traditional Disciplines and Contemporary Theory in Medieval Studies. Ed. Allen J. Frantzen. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1991. 181-210.
Irvine, Martin. ‘Anglo-Saxon Literary Theory Exemplified in Old English Poems: Interpreting the Cross in The Dream of the Rood and Elene’. Style 20 (1986): 157-81.
Irvine, Martin. The Making of Textual Culture: ‘Grammatica’ and Literary Theory, 350-1100. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
7. Semiotics
Jonathan D. Evans. ‘Semiotics and Traditional Lore: The Medieval Dragon Tradition’. Journal of Folklore Research 22 (1985): 85-112.
Overing, Gillian R. Language, Sign, and Gender in Beowulf. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990. ch. 2
8. Psychoanalysis
Earl, James W. Thinking About ‘Beowulf’. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994.
Hill, John M. ‘Revenge and Superego Mastery in Beowulf’. Assays: Critical Approaches to Medieval and Renaissance Texts 5 (1989): 3-36.
Hermann, John P. Allegories of War: Language and Violence in Old English Poetry. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1989.
9 and 10. Post-modernism
Duncan, Ian. ‘Epitaphs for Æglæcan: Narrative Strife in Beowulf’. In Modern Critical Interpretations: Beowulf. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. 111-30.
Georgianna, Linda. ‘King Hrethel’s Sorrow and the Limits of Heroic Action in Beowulf’. Speculum 62 (1987): 829-50.
Higley, Sarah Lynn. ‘Aldor on Ofre, or the Reluctant Hart: A Study of Liminality in Beowulf’. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 87 (1986): 342-53.
Hermann, John P. Allegories of War: Language and Violence in Old English Poetry. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1989.
Lerer, Seth. Literacy and Power in Anglo-Saxon Literature. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991. ch. 5 for Derrida
Near, Michael. ‘Anticipating Alienation: Beowulf and the Intrusion of Literacy’. PMLA 103 (1993): 320-32. cf. De Man?
Thormann, Janet. ‘The Poetics of Absence: "The Lament of the Sole Survivor" in Beowulf’. In De Gustibus: Essays for Alain Renoir. Ed. John Miles Foley. New York: Garland, 1992.
Waterhouse, Ruth. ‘Beowulf as "Palimpsest"’. In Geardagum 13 (1992): 1-18.
Page created by Dr Jennifer Neville
Last updated 24 December1998