TY  - GEN
AU  - Orchard,Andy
TI  - A critical companion to Beowulf
SN  - 9781843840299
AV  - PR1585.O64.A275 
PY  - 2007///
CY  - Cambridge, England
PB  - D.S. Brewer
KW  - Medieval Literacy Criticism
KW  - Ancient & Classical Literature
KW  - Medieval Literature
KW  - Literature
N1  - Includes bibliography (pages 327-370) and indexes (pages 371-396); Foreword: looking back --; Manuscript and text --; Style and structure --; Myth and legend --; Religion and learning --; Heroes and villains --; Words and deeds --; Beowulf: beyond criticism? --; Afterword looking forward; 2; CIU has obtained rights for you to copy and share this title in electronic or print format with students, faculty and staff
N2  - Beowulf is the best known and most closely studied literary work surviving from Anglo-Saxon England, and the modern reader is faced with a bewildering number and variety of interpretations about such basic matters as the date, provenance, and significance of the poem. A Critical Companion to Beowulf addresses these and other issues, reviewing and synthesising previous scholarship, as well as offering fresh perspectives. After an initial introduction to the poem, attention is focused on such matters as the manuscript context and approaches to dating the poem; the particular style, diction, and structure of this most idiosyncratic of Old English texts; the background to the poem (considered not simply with respect to historical and legendary material, but also in the context of myth and fable); the specific roles of selected individual characters, both major and minor; and the original intended audience and perceived purpose of the poem. A final chapter describes the range of critical approaches which have been applied to the poem in the past, and points towards directions for future study. ANDY OregonCHARD is Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, University of Oxford
ER  -