In Hard Copy to My Office and To

Dr. Perdigao

HUM 2051: Civilization I

Fall 2014

Final Essay

due Wednesday, December 10

in hard copy to my office and to

Your task and undertaking for the final essay is to choose one of the following questions and construct a reading of John Gardner’s Grendel as a response to Beowulf. Make certain that you cite at least one additional critical text in the argument surrounding the central ones (this may take the form of the Perry text, the Norton introductions, selections from the critical readings on the handouts/slides, or any of the philosophical/theoretical texts in the Norton text that we have covered during the semester).Outside research is not encouraged; if you do any outside research, please submit copies of the sources you use. You must demonstrate close readings of at least one critical text and Grendel; you might cite examples from Beowulf as well to establish your terms.Use the critical arguments as a frame for your reading of Grendel as a revision of Beowulf. Develop a solid thesis and make sure that you go beyond plot summary to make an argument about the relationships between the texts, their specific details, in your close readings.

Guidelines:

4 pages

MLA format

Works Cited page

Typed

standard 12-point font with margins of approximately 1¼ inches

1. After hearing the Shaper’s story, Grendel states, “I too crept away, my mind aswim in ringing phrases, magnificent, golden, and all of them, incredibly, lies . . . What was he? The man had changed the world, had torn up the past by its thick, gnarled roots and had transmuted it, and they, who knew the truth, remembered it his way—and so did I” (43). What is the function of storytelling in Grendel? How is Gardner representing not only his own text (in this metafictional moment) but also a literary history? For this essay, you may consider other texts we have covered—how Homer remembers a golden age, how Virgil remembers Homer. . .How are the “Shapers” represented in those texts, through those texts?What is the function of storytelling within this text? Is it revised from what we saw in the classical and medieval worlds? What do those revisions show us?
2. Grendel questions the Shaper’s tales to Unferth, saying, “I’m impressed. I’ve never seen a live hero before. I thought they were only in poetry. Ah, ah, it must be a terrible burden, though, being a hero—glory reaper, harvester of monsters! Everybody always watching you, weighing you, seeing if you’re still heroic. You know how it is—he he!” (84). Unferth replies, “It will be sung year on year and age on age that Unferth went down through the burning lake. . . and gave his life in battle with the world-rim monster. . . All very well to talk about dignity and noble language and all the rest, as if heroism were a golden trinket, mere outward show, and hollow. But such is not the case, monster. That is to say. . .Poetry’s trash, mere clouds of words, comfort to the hopeless. But this is no cloud, no syllabled phantom that stands here shaking its sword at you” (87-88). Hearing Unferth’s contradictions, Grendel says, “But reality, alas, is essentially shoddy” (88). How is Gardner playing with the conventions of the warrior code? What is the place of heroes in Grendel? How is Gardner challenging the construction of Beowulf, the character and the text?

1. In Grendel, Queen Wealtheow is depicted as an object for Grendel’s affection and rage. Grendel says, “She tore me apart as once the Shaper’s song had done” (100). Despite his childlike need for his mother—evidenced in his cries of “‘Mama! Waa!’” (18)—Grendel is estranged from her. What roles do the female characters play in the novel? How do theycompare to those in Beowulf? How is monstrosity and heroism defined (and redefined) in relation to the female characters? You might go back further to consider how these roles fit within the tradition of male heroes and their lovers, wives, seductresses, and murderers.