Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

4-16-2021

Department

History

Keywords

Beowulf, monsters, translating and interpreting

Abstract

No longer do we believe in monsters; we’ve reached a ripe old, disenchanted age. In the 21st century, we romance vampires, we train dragons, and we pacify Greek gods. In our enlightened state, we produce novels and films that offer the perspective of the monsters in an attempt to help us understand them and make them seem less monstrous. Yet, we continue to demonize, and the monstrous survives in the “other” with whom we disagree, fueled, no doubt, by our highly politicized society today. It appears we’ve learned nothing in our enlightened disenchantment. I want to consider here one such recent attempt to understand monsters in Maria Dahvan Headley’s new translation of the poem Beowulf.

Comments

Presented at the 2021 Northern Plains Conference on Early British Literature, held on the campus of Dordt University, Sioux Center, Iowa.

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