Grendel

Este ensayo analiza tanto el carácter monstruoso como las tendencias (anti) heroicas del personaje medieval Grendel a partir de dos textos principales: el poema épico Beowulf y la novela Grendel de John Gardner. El análisis busca, hasta cierto punto, revertir el rol del monstruo en la concepción de la épica tradicional, distinguiendo algunas de las cualidades más humanas en ambas representaciones literarias del personaje.  Entre estas, se explora la centralidad de la madre de Grendel y la perspectiva de la hazaña desde la percepción del monstruo

From Winston Black in The Medieval Review 15.06.24...

'In the concluding essay, "The Bright Side of the Knife: Dismemberment in Medieval Europe and the Modern Imagination," Lila Yawn clearly takes the most chances and has the most fun in exploring the topic of medieval wounds and wounding. After a review of graphic and supposedly "medieval" dismemberments in modern movies and literature, such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, or Pulp Fiction, Yawn poses the simple question of "how medieval cutting up living bodies really was" (218). In response, she gives a whirlwind tour of nearly two millennia of images and descriptions of amputation, dismemberment, fragmentation, and mutilation from Cicero to Thomas Jefferson. In so doing she demonstrates, as many medieval apologists have already noted, that there is no greater amount or degree of dismemberment in the Middle Ages than before or after, but what leads moderns to equate "medieval" with "dismemberment" is the medieval tendency to celebrate dismemberment and put severed body parts on display, be they of the criminal or of the saint.'

The Medieval Review 15.06.24
Kirkham, Anne, and Cordelia Warr, eds. Wounds in the Middle Ages. The History of Medicine in Context. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2014. pp. xvi, 254. $124.95 (hardback). ISBN: 9781409465690 (hardback).
Reviewed by: Winston Black, Assumption College. black@assumption.edu
https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/tmr/article/view/19219/25339

It is the contention of the present paper to analyze the figure of Grendel, as depicted within three of the existing “Beowulf” texts: the source epic poem Beowulf (Anonymous, created between the VIII and the XI centuries), the film by Sturla Gunnarsson Beowulf and Grendel (2005) and the film by Robert Zemeckis' Beowulf (2007). Said analysis is carried out under the light of the Power Relations Theory initiated by Foucault , as we believe that Grendel is portrayed as the “Monstrous Other” in all three texts. Consequently, we explore along these lines how features such as the character’s physicality, his narrative voice in the texts (or lack thereof), and the ineludible fatal outcome of his actions, all converge across the texts to reinforce Grendel’s “otherness”.

"The Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, as we read it, is already the literary place of a cultural encounter
over centuries between an old Germanic heroic story and the Christian culture of the writer, a novel
of our days which re-uses the story is the continuation of a tradition already inscribed in the old
poem. But in the poem another main cultural encounter takes place. If a culture can, or can try to,
define itself and narrate its own survival through its hero, a hero needs an antagonist to define itself:
Beowulf’s antagonist is the well-known monster called Grendel. The article focuses on the
encounter with the otherness represented by Grendel in the original Beowulf and on how it changes
in its rewriting 'Eater of the Dead' by Michael Crichton (1997): from the threat morally and ethically
posed of the medieval poem to the contemporary anthropological threat revealing our fear for
previous stages of evolution. Crichton’s novel combines Beowulf’s story with Ibn Fadlan’s account
of his journey among the Bulghars, which gives the novel a geographical and multi-cultural
approach that was absent in the Anglo-Saxon poem. An epic poem is always a literary space where
cultural encounters take place, but these encounters have to change their features to be felt as
relevant in another time and in another culture."

Beowulf, the Geatish hero who prominently features in the famous Anglo-Saxon poem of the same name, is one of the most successful and radical monster-slayers that world mythology has to offer. However, as he grows older, the hero's powers diminish and the poem ends with a sense of deep mourning and loss. With the help of comparative mythology I will try to shed some light on the nature of the successive forms of evil that Beowulf encounters. Secondly, I will contrast evil as it appears in the thousand year old epic poem Beowulf with some (post)modern ideas about evil that we find in Sturla Gunnarsson's 2005 movie Beowulf and Grendel.

In the days of the epic poem Beowulf, a king’s strength was determined by his will, competence, wealth, and power. He had to rule over entire tribes of people and had to be willing to put down any rebellion. But he was human, for he needed warriors to fight for him and counselors to advise him. Even in old age, a king had to set for himself and his people a good example and prove himself worthy of continuing a line of successors. It was a time within the poem when danger manifested itself in the form of monsters and enemy tribes, when the tribes needed a figure to inspire and lead them.

This paper seeks to explain Grendel's place in medieval society by comparing his rendition in Beowulf to his modern counterpart in "The 13th Warrior" - The Wendol. Both monsters help illuminate medieval social anxieties - allowing us to better understand medieval culture as a whole.

The Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, as we read it, is already the literary place of a cultural encounter over centuries between an old Germanic heroic story and the Christian culture of the writer, a novel of our days which re-uses the story is the continuation of a tradition already inscribed in the old poem. But in the poem another main cultural encounter takes place. If a culture can, or can try to define himself and narrate its own survival through its hero, a hero needs an antagonist to define itself: Beowulf’s antagonist is the well-known monster called Grendel. The article focuses on the encounter with the otherness represented by Grendel in the 'original' Beowulf and on how it changes in its rewriting in eater of the Dead by Michael Crichton (1997): from the threat morally and ethically posed of the medieval poem to the contemporary anthropological threat revealing our fear of stages of evolution. Crichton’s novel combines Beowulf’s story with Ibn Fadlan’s account of his journey among the Bulghars, which gives the novel a geographical and multi-cultural approach that was absent in the Anglo-Saxon poem. An epic poem is always a literary space where cultural encounters take place, but these encounters have to change their features to be felt as relevant in another time and in another culture.

Just as the antagonists of Beowulf may be read as symbolic of those problems which pervaded the heroic society in which the poem is set, so too can they be viewed as having deeper allegorical meaning in the modern adaptations of the Anglo-Saxon poem. These adaptations may be seen both to react to and engage with the poem as a means to express contemporary concerns about modern society. One such concern on which Beowulf adaptations have especially focused is that of the gendered power structures that appear in the poem, in particular the tension between the patriarchal world of Heorot and the martriarchal mere and its female occupant, Grendel’ s mother.
Through the employment of the theoretical frameworks put forward by Julia Kristeva and Sherry B. Ortner, this article will examine how patriarchal societies are depicted in three Beowulf adaptations: Gareth Hind’ s graphic novel The Collected Beowulf, John Gardner’ s novel Grendel, and Robert Zemeckis’ s film Beowulf

The thurs (O.N. þurs) is an archetypal monster appearing throughout the literature of medieval Northern Europe. The enduring popularity of this archetype is evidenced by the release of at least three Hollywood movies in the last fifteen years based on Beowulf. But are we only recycling old thurs legends, or is the archetype still useful for creating new stories? One of the most popular monsters of recent years is the title character of the DreamWorks Animation film Shrek (2001), as well as the protagonist of the William Steig book, Shrek! (1990), upon which the film is based. Is Shrek a twenty-first century thurs? Does Shrek have anything in common with historical thurses? And if so, why does the archetype endure?

'Beowulf and the Monsters', Sydney, 1997 (corr. edn 1999) – pertinent extracts only, in reprint.

The original publication is an abridged Modern English translation of the Anglo-Saxon poem, 'Beowulf'. It is divided into three sections, relating to Grendel, to Grendel’s Mother, and to the Dragon. It suggests, moreover, that the tale is designed as an ancient detective story; that the monsters represent real and historical humans; that a number of sequences in the poem point back to well-known old Scandinavian stories; and that the poet actually presents certain clues to solving the riddle of the monsters’ ‘human’ identities.

Explanatory extracts from each of the three Introductions appear here, as reprints.

The general suggestions are that Grendel represents Agnar, son of Ingeld; that Grendel’s Mother is the counterpart of Ingeld’s first wife (the daughter of Earl Swerting of Sweden); and that the fire-breathing Dragon is a literary representation of Onela, king of the Swedes.

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) was a famous Spanish painter who is credited with painting a work titled Saturn Devouring One of His Sons. This work was one of over ten others known as the “Black Paintings,” which were painted on the walls of his Quinta home in Spain. The painting’s contents have been widely accepted as depicting a deity named Saturn, whose Greek equivalent is Cronus (Κρόνος). It is widely believed that the painting depicts a passage from the Greek mythological story known as the Theogony, attributed to Hesiod (ca. 700 BCE). The title and attribution stated above were assigned posthumously, not by Goya himself. No other authorship sources seem to be available. Prior investigations have relied on psychological inferences about Goya. The present investigation conducted an exhaustive literature review and then compared the painting's contents to Greek and English versions of Hesiod's Theogony. All three posited hypotheses were supported: (a) prior investigators seemed to rely on psychological analyses concerned with Goya’s mental state, despite a lack of objective evidence from the time period in question; (b) textual evidence from Hesiod’s Theogony did not provide support for Cronus being the figure depicted in the Saturn painting, and; (c) Grendel’s depiction in Beowulf aligned with the Saturn painting’s contents, textually and graphically. Further probing was conducted with regard to whether Goya could have profited from the materials and concepts found in the manuscript during his lifetime. The Beowulf manuscript was available to an artist between 1820-1823, and the plot of Beowulf was written about in European publications. Finally, the Beowulf manuscript’s contents included the Biblical story of Judith and Beowulf in the same spine, which corresponds to the adjacent location of the Judith and Saturn paintings in Goya’s Quinta home. Implications and limitations are discussed.

The Bēowulf, one of the most important Anglo-Saxon poems, shows a very peculiar kind of enemy: the terrible ogre Grendel. Grendel is the father of all the enemies of the humankind, the brood of Cain, and the poet describes him as the Evil itself. In this article, I propose a new interpretation of this poem as a political-juridical poem, focusing on the figure of this character: in my opinion, Grendel is the reification of the disorder, and so is more properly described as an enemy of society and of civilization. The problem with Grendel is that he can't be fought with the rules of the law, because the law is that who Grendel denies and refuses. But the king is the lord of the law, and he can't fight ignoring the law. The only way to succeed in this struggle against the disorder and to save the society and the civilization is to accept to set the rules apart, and this can be done only by a foreign warrior, the Swedish hero Bēowulf. Bēowulf is exceptional, and so he is the only one who can face Grendel, as well exceptional, in a battle field where the stuggle runs without any rules, and where the eye of the king can't see.

This essay exposes a foundational misreading that occludes three puzzles in the Grendel episode: the anomaly of Beowulf's hand-to-hand grip, the lack of counterattack , and the absence of heroic action in Grendel's mutilation. I trace this misreading to Frederick Klaeber's analysis of two analogue episodes from Grettir's Saga. Within the saga I outline a shared plot structure that uses patterns of strategic interaction to confirm heroic agency. Conversely, I show how the Grendel episode subverts this masterplot, in favor of a sacred plot that confirms the agency of God. The shift is accomplished in a riddling design forged in Beowulf's unwavering tenacity and Grendel's unwavering attempt to flee. As this unvarying opposition replaces anticipated interaction, it charges Grendel's hyperbolic reaction with enigma. The essential counter-clue comes, however, as demonic signs insinuate Grendel's metaphysical antipathy to Beowulf's inadvertent handfaestung (hand-fasting), an iconic gesture of covenant. Yet even as metaphysical tropes spotlight Grendel's impotence, figures of equivalency extend to Beowulf, the Danes, and the Geats, eventually scuttling every confirmation of heroic agency. Accordingly , a farce of unintended outcomes ultimately subsumes the masterplot, as the tension between superhuman tenacity and superhuman desperation makes inevitable Grendel's demonic self-destruction.

This work, which is part translation and part innovation, keeps to the overall outline of the account of Beowulf’s exploits, but puts back some of the episodes from the Scandinavian past upon which poet might have relied in providing resolutions to the meaning of his tale. Thus, the Ingeld-Freawaru Episode might be a reworking of an earlier one where Starkarth advises Ingeld to put aside his new Swedish wife, before the ‘she-wolf’ brings forth a ‘monster’ that shall hurt its own father. (The monster-mother is described in the poem as both a ‘woman’ and a ‘wolf’.) The Fight between Beowulf and Grendel might be a dramatisation of that in which Bothvarr Bjarki defeats Agnar, son of Ingeld, who died ‘with his lips separated into a smile’. (Here the monster’s name might be composed of the elements ‘gren’ and ‘dæled’, or ‘grin’ and ‘divided’, and the classification of the male beast as of the offspring of Cain might be a reference to his paternity since, in an earlier tale, Ingeld kills his brother, Half-dane, and is consequently driven from the kingdom.) And the Dragon Affair might be used as a loose adaptation of an earlier tale of the battles between Egill and Tunni over the control of the Swedish hoard. (Here Ongentheow might be the counterpart of Egill, as ‘ongen-theow’ means ‘against-the-slave’, and as their identifiable family connections are exactly equal.)

The Old English epic of Beowulf is characterised by several supernatural events in which the hero performs wondrous deeds. The most outstanding ability of the Prince of the Geats is to be able to fight dreadful beings such as sea-monsters, Grendel and its mother, and a dragon. Those prodigious contests give form to some of the main manifestations of the marvellous throughout the poem. The present study analyses the lexical incidence of recurring key-words such as “wundor” (‘astonishing thing’), “wrætlic” (‘splendid’, ‘wonder-inspiring’), and “sellic” (‘wonderful’, ‘strange’). It also aims at providing support to reading Beowulf merely as a hero with unusual strength, not as a good monster amid bad monsters.

The relationship between history and narrative has always been a subject of controversy among philosophers, historians and literary theorists. Is narrative the indispensible component of history? What is the function of narrative in history? How does history represent human experience with the narrative function? Is historical narrative imitation or reproduction of the past? What is the role of the historian and his constructive imagination in history writing? This article discusses these questions in the context of a literary text, Gardner's Grendel, which is a rewriting of the Old English epic Beowulf, and with reference to phenomenological and Kantian ideas of history, narrative, the self, and imagination. Relying mainly on Hayden White, Louis Mink, and Paul Ricoeur's ideas of history and narrative, the present article concludes that history is a reproduction of past actuality instead of an imitation of it. Thus, in the article the term history-making is preferred instead of history writing and history-making is regarded as bearing close resemblance to story-making. The paper studies Grendel against this philosophical background in terms of how narrative plays a symbolizing, form-giving tool for consciousness in historicizing human experience and how heroism and monstrosity are historical, ideational constructs on which human experience is founded. Historicity and its positioning of the individual subject and the society into spatio-temporal context through narrative are much debated issues in phenomenological research. The symbolic/pattern-making function of the human mind, its structuring fragments of experience

Since the 19th century, Beowulf has received sustained critical attention in the form of scholarship, translation, and more recently, in the form of adaptation (including film, novel, and comic adaptations). My research aims to show how the characterisation of Grendel and Grendel’s mother has altered throughout Beowulf’s reception history and how these two ambiguous figures can be used as complex textual and cultural signs that require close reading.
      My research aims to identify how translations and adaptations have responded to these two figures, and explore how they have shaped these characters according to both their own social and historical contexts, but also to prevailing scholarly trends and previous interpretations of the poem. Through my research I will argue for a reconsideration of the place of often-dismissed adaptations, demonstrating that they are often well-informed by academic debates.
      In doing this, I will also complete a comprehensive study of the Old English terms used to describe these two characters, and aim to carry out an objective assessment of the parameters of their monstrosity, arguing in particular for a radical reconsideration of Grendel’s mother as a human figure.

Fenomenu čudovišnosti u ovom se radu pristupa kao obliku diskursa, a pod morfologijom čudovišnosti analiziraju se i dovode u uzajamnu vezu sastavnice koje tvore diskursivnu čudovišnost – tijelo, jezik, prehrana i stanište, odnosno porijeklo. Navedenim sastavnicama diskursa o čudovišnosti, glavna je odlika binarno ustrojstvo – čudovišni prostor ustrojen je kao rub svijeta suprotstavljen središtu; čudovišna prehrana kao neljudska, a u ekstremnom obliku i ljudožderska; čudovišni jezik od začetaka eurocentričnosti "barbarski" je jezik, bestijalan, nerazumljiv "nejezik" suprotstavljen jeziku kulturnog središta; čudovišno tijelo je hibridno, otrovno, zarazno, vjerski nedisciplinirano; dakle, suprotstavljeno homogenom biću, "čistom" u religijskom i etničkom smislu. U skladu s Cohenovom definicijom, znakovi se čudovišnosti iščitavaju kao prekomjernost (u višku ili nedostatku) u odnosu na vladajuću konstrukciju ljudskosti.
Trag koji je na književne reprezentacije ostavio navedeni diskursivni obrazac čudovišnosti, u ovom se radu prati od izabranih tekstova mezopotamske književnosti (Enki i Kur, Lugale, Angin, Inanna i Ebih, Gilgameš, Anzu i Enuma Eliš). Pritom se u poglavlju o mezopotamskim čudovištima nešto više pažnje posvećuje općim značajkama mezopotamske književnosti, zbog osebujne i dosad slabo proučene građe, kao i zbog prijevoda koji su nastajali za potrebe ovoga rada.
Uz upletenost etnocentričnog svjetonazora znatna je i uloga religijskog diskursa u percipiranju čudovišnosti drugih. U tom su smislu osobito važne demonološke predodžbe koje se razvijaju u odnosu prema religiji koja pripada drugima. Tim se pitanjima bavi drugo poglavlje, posvećeno Starom zavjetu, osobito ranim jahvističkim predodžbama o odnosu božanskog i demonskog (Kraljevi, Suci). Također, iz Starog zavjeta izabrani su ulomci Psalama, proročkih tekstova i Knjige o Jobu u kojima se spominju čudovišta Rahab, Levijatan i Behemot. Uglavnom se analizira starozavjetna demonologija koncentrirana oko figure Rahaba.
Treće poglavlje počinje uvodom u eurocentrično poimanje čudovišnosti. Analiza  "etnogeneze" čudovišta polazi od  razlike u Herodotovoj i Plinijevoj optici predočavanja Skita obzirom na njihovu čudovišnost. Zatim se pristupa demonološkom antičkom nasljeđu srednjeg vijeka, a razvoj demonoloških koncepcija najprije se promatra kroz odnos Plutarhova djela De genio Socratis prema Apulejevu djelu De deo Socratis, koje predstavlja interpretatio romana grčke demonologije, a zatim se, kao interpretatio christiana antičke demonologije u cjelini, u analizu uključuje Augustinovo djelo O državi Božjoj. Preuzimajući materijal "poganskih povijesti", odnosno temu "čudovišnih ljudskih rodova" iz  Plinijeva Prirodopisa to je djelo razvilo osebujnu antropologiju prožetu kršćanskim duhom. Polazeći zatim od ulomaka iz Etimologija Izidora Seviljskog nastoji se pokazati kako se u teološkoj refleksiji izgradio osebujan srednjovjekovni semiotički sustav čudovišnosti. Pri kraju se ovog poglavlja, u kontekstu razvoja diskursa otpora prema ženskoj senzualnosti, sagledava uklapanje straha od ženskog tijelu u okvir srednjovjekovne opsesije demonima.
Utjecanje pretkršćanske predaje u rano kršćanstvo anglosaskog srednjovjekovlja, te njihovo stapanje u hibridnim mitološkim predodžbama o Grendelu i njegovoj majci, prati se u zasebnom poglavlju posvećenom Beowulfu. Susret "poganske" predaje i kršćanstva analizira se u kontekstu patrijarhalnog ratničkog svijeta predstavljenog u epu.
U poglavlju "Postkolonijalni Shakespeare i čudovišnost" interpretirane su drame Mletački trgovac, Othello i Oluja iz aspekta čudovišnosti dramskih likova Shylocka, Othella i Kalibana. Daje se osvrt na relevantnu postkolonijalnu interpretaciju Shakespearea, osobito uzimajući u obzir izazov "središnjeg mjesta" koje bard zauzima u zapadnoj kulturi.
U zaključnom poglavlju obrazlaže se najprije mitološki model u kojemu  čudovište predstavlja kategoriju posredovanja između načela reda (Kozmos) i načela nereda (Kaos). Zatim se izlaže etnocentrični model čudovišnosti u kojemu se čudovišnost bića o kojima je bilo riječi u ovom monstruariju, pokušava usustaviti obzirom na znakove čudovišnosti iskazane u prostoru koji nastanjuju (ili iz kojega potječu), obilježjima jezika/govora, tijelu, prehrani i porijeklu, iščitavajući u tim znakovima prekomjernost (u višku ili nedostatku) u odnosu na vladajuću konstrukciju ljudskosti.
INTRODUCTION TO THE MONSTER THEORY: FROM HUMBABA TO CALIBAN
The phenomenon of monstrosity in this book is dealt with as a form of discourse, and under the morphology of monstrosity, the components which make up discursive monstrosity – the body, diet and habitat, that is origin – are analyzed and interrelated. The main characteristic of the afore-mentioned components is their binary structure – the monstrous area is established as the edge of the world opposed to the centre; the monstrous food is inhuman, in its extreme form even cannibalistic; the monstrous language from the beginnings of eurocentricity is a "barbarian language", bestial, incomprehensible non-language opposed to the language of the cultural centre; the monstrous hybrid body is poisonous, infectious, religiously undisciplined and thus is opposed to the homogenous being, clean in the religious and ethnic sense. According to Cohen's definition, the signs of monstrosity are seen as immoderate (either excess or lack of something) in relation to the governing construction of humanity. The trace which the afore-mentioned discursive form of monstrosity left on literary representations is followed in the selected fragments of Mesopotamian and Norhwest Semitic (Ugaritic and Hebrew) narrative poems, over demonological conceptions of the middle Ages, toward the spilling over the pre-Christian traditions into the early Christianity of the Anglo-Saxon Middle Ages, and their fusion into the hybrid mythological conceptions in Beowulf. The last chapter is dedicated to "Postcolonial Shakespeare and Monstrosity".

L'épopée médiévale anglo-saxonne Beowulf oppose le héros éponyme à trois ennemis successifs qui semblent ne pas appartenir au monde des hommes. Les trois monstres, Grendel, sa mère et le dragon, vivent dans des espaces séparés de la communauté humaine, mais leurs expéditions sont toujours causées par une action des hommes. La narration établit un jeu de symétries entre les adversaires, souvent comportementale. Grendel "pille les bancs de festin" tout comme le descendant des Danois dans l'incipit et Beowulf emporte la tête de Grendel comme la mère de Grendel a emporté la tête de sa victime, jusqu'au combat de forces égales où Beowulf et le dragon s'entretuent. On peut se demander alors ce que représente chacun de ces monstres dans un parcours initiatique où l'homme se confronte à une altérité ambiguë, qu'il conviendra d'éclaircir pas à pas.

Grendel is a fiend and a devil, a monster that represents evil in society. He is an enemy of God, and God sends the hero Beowulf to defeat Grendel. Grendel is also a descendant of Cain, who is marked by God as a monster after Cain murders Abel in the Biblical creation story. By attacking the mead hall, Grendel attacks the social and economic center of contemporary Danish society, which is also a reflection of God’s kingdom, becoming a representation of evil in society.

Abstract: The size of the scattering image and its distance from the target determine the degree of accuracy and precision of the automatic rifle. The rifles were and still are the primary weapon of the infantry, and according to their dimensions and manner of handling, they belong to the category of individual weapons. They are very successfully used for shooting at distances up to 400 m, excellent shooters can successfully shoot at distances up to 600 m. The automatic rifle is intended to destroy the enemy's live force and the enemy's firepower. The paper presents the tactical-technical and combat characteristics of automatic domestic guns, AP M70 AB2 7,62 mm, PA M21 5.56 mm, PAM M17 6.5 mm. A comparative analysis of the construction characteristics of the previously mentioned automatic rifles and their ammunition was completed by using the Expert choice application and the AHP method. On the basis of the obtained results, the conclusion about the most effective automatic rifle was made, with the aim of introducing into operational use and equipping units of the Serbian Army. Based on the results and research, it came to the conclusion that the 6.5 mm automatic modular rifle M17 is equipped with best design characteristics.

The Old English Beowulf’s Grendel's Mother has been reimagined in comic books as an undocile body requiring discipline.  A comic book adaptation by Enrico Basari originally appeared in serial form from October 5, 1940-January 25, 1941 and was featured in Il Vittorioso, a Catholic youth publication that attempted to go beyond mere Fascist propaganda for young people. This Grendel's Mother is realized within the context of a fascist ideology burdened by racist beliefs stemming from a medieval past, as seen in the pictures rendered by a German-born illustrator with a suspect political past of his own.

What  can  the  medieval  poem  Beowulf tell  us  about  early  twenty-first  century  Western  culture?  Its  ancient text,  translations  and  recent  adaptations  represent  an  ongoing  literary  conversation  about  shifting  attitudes  toward  heroes and  monsters, the  Self and Other.  Both Beowulf and Grendel  have been resurrected in several late twentieth and early twenty-first century works of literature and film, changing forms and trading places in the narrative as they probe cultural anxieties and express desires surrounding evolving definitions of what it means to be a hero and who is the monstrous Other. Examines John Gardner's Grendel (1971), Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead (1976), and the films Beowulf & Grendel (2005), Beowulf (2007), and the Shrek franchise (2001-2007).

In common parlance "medieval" is synonymous with "backward" "benighted" and "barbaric."  Films, literature, and journalistic language about the Middle Ages and medievalizing fantasy worlds commonly reinforce this perceived equivalency by representing dismemberment — the cutting up or pulling apart of living human bodies — as a common element of medieval and medieval-style experience.  (Think of Monty Python's Black Knight or of Frodo Baggins's finger.) Yet legal codes, accounts of war, and other historical sources indicate that the non-medical/therapeutic severing of extremities was as much an early modern phenomenon as a medieval one.  What diminished at the end of the Middle Ages was the tendency to perceive the loss of an arm, leg, hand, or nose as somehow potentially positive: as an instrument of sexual virtue, saintly witness, religious conversion, or peacemaking.

Animation and special effects studios today are making increasing use of motion capture, computer-generated imagery (CGI), and digital puppetry in television, theatre, commercial films, and videogames. As CGI grows ever more capable and pliant, it is not only changing the way actors and puppets show up in various media, it is enabling animated characters to perform like puppets and vice versa. Actors are controlling cartoon characters, while visual-effects teams are seamlessly mingling objects with images, blurring the lines between acting, animation, puppetry, and special effects. Hybrids are appearing in a range of environments, including live theatre, theme parks, and - most commonly - fantasy films. In the latter, animation and puppetry are sometimes combined to achieve human likeness through motion capture technology. In this essay, I will argue that successful hybrids are radically transforming what puppetry and animation can do. In some cases, however, where these fusions are used to achieve naturalistic human likeness, their creators are setting aside what is most advantageous about puppetry and animation, thus diminishing their creative impact.
Published in The Routledge Companion to Puppetry and Material Performance (2014), ed. Dassia N. Posner, Claudia Orenstein, and John Bell.
ebook: http://www.vlebooks.com/vleweb/product/openreader?id=none&isbn=9781317911722.

The line “Enge anpaðas uncuð gelad” [narrow path, unknown way] appears twice in the Old English corpus: once in the Old English Exodus (a tale from Old Testament narrative poetry that tells us a story of the Israelites fleeing the Egyptians) and once in Beowulf (an epic story of masculine bravado, intense alienation and Otherness, and time past and almost forgotten). Miriamne Ara Krummel and Asa Simon Mittman attempt to generate new perspectives on these well-known narratives. They ask readers to reconsider their visions of two Anglo-Saxon poems that have, for perhaps overlong, occupied our imaginations as narratives about a deeply masculinized world of infallible, semi-Christianized warriors. Through a series of imagined encounters between outcasts, Krummel and Mittman wonder over the significance of this duplicated line that changes meaning if the crossing of this path is considered counterintuitively.

Monsters remain fascinating subjects, and intense discussion in recent years has focused on their representation in medieval texts, including stories as well as the art of the period. However, scholars have largely neglected the post-medieval afterlife of these horrors in later works. Monstrous entities manufactured to exist within recreations of the Middle Ages in contemporary media share a similar fate in the academy. In short, medievalists appear to like monsters, but they do not always seem willing to explore their depictions in modern texts. Despite this neglect, the monsters found in medievalisms have merit in our classrooms and research, and we need to promote their exploits as well as those of the creatures existing within medieval artifacts.

In furtherance of the goals of the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, we seek in this panel to unite Medieval Studies, Medievalism Studies, Monster Studies, and Popular Culture Studies to highlight connections between medieval monstrosities and their post-medieval incarnations and successors. We hope to explore both continuity and change in addressing how terrors rooted in the medieval have been portrayed and how their inheritors have been developed.

In 2010, the Polish translation of "Beowulf" was edited. The translator, Robert Stiller, provided the edition with a considerable introduction and comments in which he convinces the reader of actuality of the Anglo-Saxon poem and its call for fighting with everything that is primitive, monstrous and vulgar. Stiller was inducing that it is a duty of contemporary reader to fight - along with the old hero - with "contemporary grendels" among whom Stiller saw also John Gardner - tha author of the novel "Grendel" (1971) - a "postmodern" travesty of the poem. Regarding to Gardner's novel and, most of all, to pop cultural achievements constiututing an attempt to revise the poem in the critical way (the "suite" of Marillion rock group, 1982; Robert Zemeckis' movie, 2007), the author of the essay reminds that in contemporary (pop) culture the rehabilitation of hitherto excommunicated heroes is proceeding. Conversely to what the Polish translator suggests, the liking of contemporary readers and viewers are directed towards the monster. We look differently at the history and tradition of culture remembering about the victims - bastards of history - the excluded and excommunicated "grendels". Perhaps nowadays they seem to be more familiar than the old heroes.

Exploration of what has traditionally been referred to as the "Christian elements" in Beowulf, with focus on structural and imagistic comparisons in medieval liturgy and iconography. Presented at Old English Discussion Circle, SAMLA conference (5 Nov. 1976), in Atlanta, GA.