5V - Beowulf

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 5

5V LITERATURE

BEOWULF

This lesson

• Re-cap of last week
• Extract from Beowulf in modern English
• Assigment 1

Anglo-Saxon literature

What could attract a modern audience to Beowulf?

Beowulf - background

• Beowulf is a heroic epic poem in Old English of over 3,000 alliterative long lines. 
• Set in Scandinavia, but composed in England by an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet, somewhere between 8th and the late 10th century. 
• Written down in the early 11th century by anonymous monk. 
• This manuscript - badly damaged by fire in the 18th century - only surviving copy. 
• First studied seriously in the early 19th century. [Tolkien!] 
• Reputation: now regarded  as the most important work of Anglo-Saxon literature. 
• In 1999 the Irish Nobel Prize winning poet Seamus Heaney published a new translation.
  

Beowulf - story background

The hero Beowulf, a warrior belonging to the tribe of the Geats (a people living in Götaland in the south of modern Sweden), comes to the help of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, whose mead hall (part of the royal palace of Heorot) has been under attack by a monster known as Grendel. After Beowulf slays him, Grendel's mother attacks the hall and is then also defeated and killed by Beowulf. Victorious, the hero goes home to Geatland and later becomes king of his people. After a period of fifty years has passed, Beowulf defeats a dragon, but is fatally wounded in the battle. After his death, his attendants bury him in a burial mound by the sea.

Reading / Assignment

• Read lines 1 - 55 with me 
• Assignment 1 .1 > together
• Read lines 56-125

Homework

Do assignment 1.2 and 1.3 for next week

We will discuss the answers in class and start working on a new literary era

What did you like best about this part of Beowulf?

Would you watch a film version of this story?

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