Graduate Seminar: Christina von Nolcken

The Anglo-Saxon Seminar: Beowulf

Christina Von Nolcken, University of Chicago

The seminar offered a close reading of Beowulf, in the course of which participants became familiar with the scholarly literature on the poem.  Among the topic addressed were the poem’s historical context, its composition and transmission, its style, whether its emphasis was religious or secular, and how its heroic aspects relate to the monster stories.  Other issues included the poem’s relation with folktales and the archetypal, or its representation of female figures.

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