The four funerals in Beowulf
By Gale Owen-Crocker
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- Format: Paperback
- ISBN: 978-0-7190-8121-7
- Pages: 272
- Price: £17.99
- Published Date: October 2009
Description
It is well known that the old English poem Beowulf begins and ends with funerals and includes the third as a digression part way through. Now, for the first time, a fourth funeral (hitherto disguised as poetic imagery) is identified from archaeological evidence. A detailed analysis of the four funerals establishes their thematic and structural importance, revealing them as pillars around which the poem is built. The poet is revealed as a literate antiquarian of considerable structural skill; one who explores feminist issues, plays with numbers and enjoys a pun; who establishes an ideal then probes its darker side.
The author's unique knowledge of Anglo-Saxon culture provides constant surprises and enlightenment. This book will be invaluable to all students of the poem for its fresh and detailed reading, its identification of a coherent structure and its establishment of the integrity of the surviving texts.
Contents
1. Introduction
Part I - the Four Funerals
2. The first funeral: Scyld Scefing's Ship of Death
3. The second funeral: the cremation of Hildeburg's kin
4. The third funeral: the Last Survivor's Lament
5. The fourth funeral: Beowulf's complex obsequies
6. Classicising the past
Part II - The Funerals and the Structure of the Poem
7. Rings and fitts
8. The funerals and elliptical structures I: the inner funerals as frames
9. The funerals and elliptical structures II: the outer structures
10. The funerals and elliptical structures III: the funerals as centres
11. Three movements and a coda: Beowulf's femininst middle
Conclusions
Author
Gale R. Owen-Crocker is Professor of Anglo-Saxon Culture at the University of Manchester