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"BEOWULF" AND THE OLD ENGLISH "JUDITH": ETHICS AND ESTHETICS IN ANGLO-SAXON POETRY
Abstract
Beowulf and Judith need to be examined not within the context of scholarly or religious polemic but with a desire to learn how these poems reveal the worlds of the poets and the vital concerns of their fellow human beings as well. The Beowulf poet, in the process of defining the Anglo-Saxon poetic tradition, portrays the world of Germanic heroic values by tracing the career of Beowulf, limning a life which, though valorous, results not only in death but in social disintegration. The Judith poet, an artist of stunning traditional fluency, re-defines the values of the Germanic heroic code in such a way as to make all but vengeance acceptable guidelines for human behavior. Significant, essential thematic resonance may well have been responsible for Beowulf and Judith being included in the same manuscript.
Subject Area
British and Irish literature
Recommended Citation
HOSMER, ROBERT ELLIS, ""BEOWULF" AND THE OLD ENGLISH "JUDITH": ETHICS AND ESTHETICS IN ANGLO-SAXON POETRY" (1985). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI8517113.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI8517113