Beowulf: Monsters, Mead, and Meaning (DRAKE HALL)
OSHR 4055Before Tolkien dreamed of hobbits, before Vikings ruled popular culture, before English was even English, there was Beowulf. This course dives headfirst into the oldest surviving epic of the English language, a poem filled with monsters, warriors, gold, and grief. But Beowulf isn’t just an adventure tale; it’s a time capsule from the early medieval world, echoing with the voices of the people who first shaped English literature, voices that continue to echo through literary tradition.
This class will take a deep dive into Beowulf, examining it as both history and art, using the poem to reveal what its world valued: loyalty, honor, storytelling, and fate. Students will encounter the poem through a range of translations, from Seamus Heaney’s lyrical swing to Maria Dahvana Headley’s modern, feminist energy, to J.R.R. Tolkien’s scholarly precision. Along the way, we’ll examine how every translator becomes, in a sense, a new poet and how each version reimagines the ancient world for a new generation.
Abigayil Wernsman is an emerging scholar who recently received her PhD in literary arts from the University of Denver, with a focus on early medieval literature. While there, she studied Old English, early medieval Latin literature, and early English pedagogy. She earned her MA in Victorian literature from the University of Northern Colorado, with a focus on the Brontë sisters, and her BA in Victorian literature from CSU. She has taught a variety of British literature courses, poetry and writing classes, and Old English language classes. She is writing and researching a project on Beowulf and academic translation, as well as several side projects. She currently lives in Loveland with her husband and their fat little dog.
Notes
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