The Beowulf Reader: Basic Readings

By Peter S. Baker

Book Overview

Gathering some of the most important studies from the past 25 years of Beowulf scholarship, The Beowulf Reader offers essential insights both to scholars in the field and to readers coming to this Old English literary masterpiece for the first time. The carefully selected essays in this volume represent the various approaches that have dominated recent Beowulf studies and illustrate the evolution of Old English literary criticism, from New Critical formalism to recent trends in critical theory and a resurgent historicism.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1138142697
• ISBN13: 9781138142695
• Release Date: March 2016
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 260 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Informative and readable

This book was the required secondary reading in a graduate level English course I took on Beowulf this year at Georgia State University. It contains several significant papers published on the poem since the mid-60s. Most of them are well-written (with a few exceptions) and not too difficult to understand. If you are looking for a general guide to research on Beowulf in the last 35 years, this is a great place to start.