A Beowulf Handbook

by Robert E. Bjork

The most revered work composed in Old English, Beowulf is one of the landmarks of European literature. This handbook supplies a wealth of insights into all major aspects of this wondrous poem and its scholarly tradition.

 

Each chapter provides a history of the scholarly interest in a particular topic, a synthesis of present knowledge and opinion, and an analysis of scholarly work that remains to be done. Written to accommodate the needs of a broad audience, A Beowulf Handbook will be of value to nonspecialists who wish simply to read and enjoy Beowulf and to scholars at work on their own research. In its clear and comprehensive treatment of the poem and its scholarship, this book will prove an indispensable guide to readers and specialists for many years to come.

Genres: Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Anglo Saxon, Criticism

466 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Robert E. Bjork is Foundation Professor of English at Arizona State University, where he has taught since 1983 and where he was Director of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (ACMRS) from 1994 to 2018. He earned his B.A. from Pomona College in 1971, his M.A. from UCLA in 1974 and his Ph.D. in 1979, also from UCLA. He was named Foundation Professor of English in 2009. His primary research areas are Old English poetry, modern Swedish literature, and biomedical writing; he has published 18 books and 26 peer-reviewed articles. His and R. D. Fulk's and John D. Niles's Klaeber's Beowulf (the 4th edition of Frederick Klaeber's Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg) was published by the University of Toronto Press in 2008. He is General Editor of the 4-volume The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages, published in June, 2010, and his second volume of facing-page translations of Old English poems for Harvard University Press was published in the spring of 2014. He is currently working on a history of Scandinavian scholarship on Anglo-Saxon literature. He's past President of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists, a recipient of an NEH senior fellowship and a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton), a Corresponding Fellow of the English Association (United Kingdom), and a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America. In addition, he also serves on the editorial boards of Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge University Press), Mediaevistik: Internationale Zeitschrift für Interdisziplinäre Mittelalterforschung (Peter Lang Verlag), and the University of Toronto Press's "Toronto Old Norse-Icelandic Studies" series as well as on the International Advisory Boards of National Sun Yat-sen University Center for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Taiwan, and of the Medieval Centre, National Chung-Cheng University, Taiwan.

Reviews

[b k · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. Unbelievably informative. I read every word of this. It is so helpful for understanding the history of Beowulf and Beowulf criticism. The chapters cover all of the most pressing topics of debate in the Beowulf community, and each chapter has a helpful little summary and chronology of important dates related to the subject at hand. Could not recommend this more strongly. It was absolutely fascinating

[Neil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential to anyone interested in the history of Beowulf scholarship. The book gives a summary and history of all aspects of Beowulf studies, ranging from language, the manuscript, analogues, digressions, structure and much more.

Each chapter is written by an expert in the relevant field, thus Theodore M. Andersson deals with the chapter on analogues, John M. Hill deals with the social setting and John D. Niles handles myth and history. The chapters begins with a list of key dates in Beowulf scholarship, making 1936 the year of Tolkien's Monsters and The Critics, 1731 is the date the manuscript was damaged by fire and 1922 is the date Klaeber published his text of the poem.


Contents include: Introduction - on "Beowulf", truth and interpretation, John D. Niles; date, provenance, author, audiences, Robert E. Bjork and Anita Obermeier; textual criticism, R.D. Fulk; the prosody of "Beowulf", Robert P. Stockwell; diction, variation, the formula, Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe; rhetoric and style, Ursula Schaefer; sources and analogues, Theodore M. Andersson; structure and unity, Thomas A. Shippey; Christian and pagan elements, Edward B. Irving; digressions and episodes, Robert E. Bjork; myth and history, John D. Niles; symbolism and allegory, Alvin A. Lee; the social milieu, John M. Hill; gender roles, Alexandra Hennessey Olsen; the hero and the theme, George Clark; "Beowulf" and contemporary critical theory, Seth Lerer; "Beowulf" and archaeology, Catherine M. Hills; translations, versions, illustrations, Marijane Osborn.

[Volsung]

I can hardly overstate how excellently useful this is as a companion to reading and studying "Beowulf." Eighteen chapters by different scholars are devoted to those most essential (and infamous) aspects of "Beowulf" scholarship which have always been, and continue to be, of fundamental importance -- e.g. "Date, Provenance, Author, Audiences," "Rhetoric and Style," "Structure and Unity," "Textual Criticism," "Christian and Pagan Elements," "Social Milieu," "Beowulf and Archaeology," "Sources and Analogues," etc. etc. Not only does each individual chapter give an excellent introduction to the topic, and overview of previous scholarship, but each chapter /also/ contains an extremely useful annotated bibliography of works pertaining to that particular topic. Highly recommended, especially for more advanced readers first coming to "Beowulf."

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewing literary criticism strikes me as weird, but this book is so rapturously interesting that I read sections every now and then for fun. Each chapter addresses either a major theme in Beowulf or an area of research. At the beginning of each chapter is an overview of historical scholarship – including a handy timeline of important publications! – and then an essay explaining what critics have argued about the topic and what conclusions remain to be investigated. Easy and entertaining! Why isn’t there one of these for every major work???