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.
Introduction; Beowulf; The Pagan Coloring of Beowulf; Beowulf and the Margins of Literacy; Elements of the Marvellous in the Characterization of Beowulf: A Reconsideration of the Textual Evidence; The Authenticating Voice in Beowulf; The Great Feud: Scriptural History and Strife in Beowulf III; The Germanic Context of the Unferp Episode; Skaldic Verse and the Date of Beowulf; Beowulf, Bede, and St. Oswine: The Hero's Pride in Old English Hagiography ; The Legacy of Wiglaf: Saving a Wounded Beowulf; The Women of Beowulf: A Context for Interpretation; Kuhn's Laws, Old English Poetry, and the New Philology; On the Dating of Beowulf
