BEOWULF (lines 990-2199) | Part 2

In which I ramble on for way too long about lines 990-2199 of Beowulf. I highly recommend not watching this, but if you do, please use at least x1.25 speed.

0:00 Introduction
0:45 A foreboding victory feast
6:42 The Finnsburg Episode
14:49 Wealtheow's speech
21:37 Grendel's Mother appears, a feud begins
37:14 Grendel's Mother's mere
42:06 Beowulf Attacks, Grendel's Mother defends herself
55:02 People react to Beowulf's victory
57:54 Hrothgar's advice to Beowulf
1:03:22 Beowulf says farewell and sets sail to Geatland
1:06:17 Beowulf tells of his battles
1:10:07 Conclusions

Here's a (selected and not at all exorbitant) list of further reading:
Abram, Christopher, “Bee-Wolf and the Hand of Victory: Identifying the Heroes of Beowulf and Völsunga Saga,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 116.4 (2017): 387-414.

Baker, Peter S., Honour, Exchange and Violence in Beowulf. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2013.

Carruthers, Leo, “Kingship and Heroism in Beowulf,” in Heroes and Heroines in Medieval English Literature: A Festchrift Presented to André Crépin on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Leo Carruthers, 19-29, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1994.

Clark, George, “Beowulf’s Armor,” ELH 32 (1965): 409-441.
…, “The Hero and the Theme,” in A Beowulf Handbook eds., Robert E. Bjork and John D. Niles, 271-290, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997.

Clover, Carol, “The Germanic Context of the Unferþ Episode,” Speculum 55 (1980): 444-486.

Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome, “Monster Culture (Seven Theses),” in Monster Theory: Reading Culture, ed Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, 3-25, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.

Damico, Helen, Beowulf and the Grendel-kin: Politics and Poetry in Eleventh-Century England. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2015.

Enright, Michael J., “The Warband Context of the Unferth Episode,” Speculum 73.2 (1998): 297-337.

Frank, Roberta, “Germanic Legend in Old English Literature,” in The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, eds. Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge, 82-100, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Gillam, Doreen M., “The use of the term ‘Æglæca’ in Beowulf at lines 893 and 2592,” Studia Germanica Gandensia 3 (1961): 145-169.

Greenfield, Stanley “A Touch of the Monstrous in the Hero, or Beowulf Re-Marvellized,” English Studies 63.4 (1982): 294-300.

Griffith, M. S., “Some Difficulties in Beowulf, lines 874-902: Sigemund Reconsidered,” Anglo-Saxon England 24 (1995): 11-41.

Gwara, Scott, Heroic Identity in the World of Beowulf. Leiden: Brill, 2008.
Harris, Joseph, “A Nativist Approach to Beowulf: The Case of Germanic Elegy,” in Companion to Old English Poetry, eds., Henk Aertsen and Rolf H. Bremmer Jr, 45-62, Amsterdam: Vu University Press, 1994.

Hill, John M., The Anglo-Saxon Warrior Ethic: Reconstructing Lordship in Early English Literature. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2000.

…, “The Christian Language and Theme of Beowulf,” in Beowulf: A Verse Translation: A Norton Christian Edition., ed. Daniel Donohue, 197-211, New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2002.

Howe, Nicholas, Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.

Irving Jr., Edward B., “Christian and Pagan Elements,” in A Beowulf Handbook, eds., Robert E. Bjork and John D. Niles, 175-192, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997.

Kiernan, Kevin Beowulf and the Beowulf-Manuscript. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996. Originally published by Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, 1981.

Lee, Alvin A., Gold-Hall and Earth-Dragon: Beowulf as Metaphor. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998.

Miller, Dean, The Epic Hero. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2000.

Neidorf, Leonard, The Transmission of ‘Beowulf’: Language, Culture, and Scribal Behavior. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2017.

O’Donoghue, Heather, English Poetry and Old Norse Myth: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Orchard, Andy, A Critical Companion to Beowulf. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003.

---., Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf-Manuscript. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995. Originally Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1985.

Parks, Wards, Verbal Dueling in Heroic Narrative: The Homeric and Old English Traditions. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990.

Robinson, Fred C., Beowulf and the Appositive Style. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1985.

Tolkien, J. R. R., “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics,” in The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, ed. Christopher Tolkien, 5-48, London: Harper Collins Publishers, 2006.

Urbanowicz, Michal, “The Function of Digressions in Beowulf,” Acta Neophilologica XV.2, 2013: 213-222

[bubblewraps]

your commentary is equally well informed and engaging. i had never enjoyed beowulf before watching your series. thank you so so much!

[WilliamCelandine]

I'm glad you highlighted the importance of hospitality

[abookhug]

Thanks so much for making this, so interesting! I've decided to finally read it and I'm enjoying myself a lot :) I also have the Heaney translation. I'm curious what you think about the Tolkien translation.