Abstract
The article considers the significance of the Grendelkin as monsters, bringing to attention the Isidorian understanding of the monster as a sign, portent, and admonition. In the original Beowulf the Grendelkin are not described as possessing many of the inhuman qualities that have been applied to them in the later critical tradition or by its translators. Isidore acknowledges in Etymologies that monsters are natural beings, whose function in the system of creation is significant. The present article considers the significance of the Grendelkin in the poem and argues that Grendel and his mother function as signs underlying themes of feud and succession in the poem. The article also brings attention to the multiple references to body parts, such as hands, and their function within the poem as synecdochic representations of the Danish body politic. The article explores the sexualised and gendered perception of the body politic in the poem.
References
Barney, Stephen A., W. J. Lewis, J. A. Beach & Oliver Berghof (eds.). 2006. The etymologies of Isidore of Seville. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511482113
Fulk, Robert D., Robert E. Bjork & John D. Niles (eds.). 2008. Klaeber’s Beowulf. (4th edn.) Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Abram, Christopher. 2010. New light on the illumination of Grendel’s mere. The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 109(2). 198–216. DOI: 10.5406/jenglgermphil.109.2.0198
Alfano, Christine. 1992. The issue of feminine monstrosity: A re-evaluation of Grendel’s mother. Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 23(1). 1–16.
Baker, Peter S. 2013. Honour, exchange and violence in Beowulf. D. S. Brewer: Cambridge.
Bazelmans, Jos. 1999. By weapons made worthy: Lords, retainers and their relationship in Beowulf. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Biggs, Frederick M. 2003. Hondscioh and Æschere in Beowulf. Neophilologus 87(4). 635–652. DOI: 10.1023/A:1025471415863
Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of sex. New York & London: Routledge.
Byers, Jr., John R. 1965. On the decorating of Heorot. PMLA 80(3). 299–300. DOI: 10.2307/461278
Camargo, Martin. 1981. The Finn episode and the tragedy of revenge in Beowulf. Studies in Philology 78(5). 120–134.
Cavell, Megan. 2014. Constructing the monstrous body in Beowulf. Anglo-Saxon England 43. 155–181. DOI: 10.1017/S0263675114000064
Chance, Jane. 1986. Woman as hero in Old English poetry. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.
Chance, Jane. 2002. The structural unity of Beowulf: The problem of Grendel’s mother. In Seamus Heaney, Beowulf. A verse translation, 152–166. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company.
Chaney, William A. 1962. Grendel and the gifstol: A legal view of monsters. PMLA 77(5). 513–520. DOI: 10.2307/460400
Christie, Edward. 2004. Self-mastery and submission: Holiness and masculinity in the lives of Anglo-Saxon martyr-kings. In Patricia H. Cullum & Katherine J. Lewis (eds.), Holiness and masculinity in the Middle Ages, 143–157. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
Clover, Carol J. 2006. Regardless of sex: Men, women, and power in early Northern Europe. In Eileen A. Joy & Mary K. Ramsey (eds.), The post-modern Beowulf: A critical casebook, 383–416. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press.
Dockray-Miller, Mary. 2000. Motherhood and mothering in Anglo-Saxon England. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Donahue, Charles. 1975. Potlatch and charity: Notes on the heroic in Beowulf. In Lewis E. Nicholson & Dolores Warwick Frese (eds.), Anglo-Saxon poetry: Essays in appreciation for John C. McGalliard, 23–40. Notre Dame & London: University of Notre Dame Press.
Drout, Michael D. C. 2007. Blood and deeds: The inheritance systems in Beowulf. Studies in Philology 104(2). 199–226.
Dubois, Arthur E. 1934. The unity of Beowulf. PMLA 49. 374–405.
Earl, James W. 1994. Thinking about Beowulf. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Hill, John M. 1995. The cultural world of Beowulf. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Hill, John M. 2008. The narrative pulse of Beowulf: Arrivals and departures. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Hill, Joyce. 1990. Þæt wæs geomoru ides! A female stereotype examined. In Helen Damico & Alexandra Hennessey Olsen (eds.), New readings on women in Old English literature, 235–247. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Horner, Shari. 2001. The discourse of enclosure: Representing women in Old English literature. Albany: University of New York Press.
Greenfield, Stanley B. 1989. The extremes of the Beowulfian body politic. In George H. Brown (ed.), Hero and exile: The art of Old English poetry. 55–66. London: Bloomsbury.
Gwara, Scott. 2008. Heroic identity in the world of Beowulf. Leiden & Boston: Brill.
Karras, Ruth Mazo. 2005. Sexuality in medieval Europe: Doing unto others. New York: Routledge.
Kiernan, Kevin. 1984. Grendel’s heroic mother. In Geardagum 6. 13–33.
Lees, Clare A. 1994. Men and Beowulf. In Clare A. Lees (ed.), Medieval masculinities: Regarding men in the Middle Ages, 129–148. Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press.
Mauss, Marcel. 1966. The gift: The form and reason for exchange in archaic societies. (Trans. W. D. Halls.) London & New York: Routledge.
McNabb, Cameron Hunt. 2011. Eldum unnyt: Treasure spaces in Beowulf. Neophilologus 95. 145–164. DOI: 10.1007/s11061-010-9217-1
O’Brien O’Keeffe, Katherine. 1981. Beowulf, lines 702b-836: Transformations and the limits of the human. Texas Studies in Literature and Language 23(4). 484–494.
Orchard, Andy. 1995. Pride and prodigies. Studies in the monsters of the Beowulf-manuscript. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer.
Oswald, Dana M. 2010. Monsters, gender and sexuality in Medieval English literature. Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer.
Overing, Gillian R. 1990. Language, sign, and gender in Beowulf. Carbondale & Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press.
Rosier, James L. 1963. The uses of association: Hands and feasts in Beowulf. PMLA 78(1). 8–14. DOI: 10.2307/461219
Sharma, Manish. 2005. Metalepsis and monstrosity: The boundaries of narrative structure in Beowulf. Studies in Philology 102(3). 247–279. DOI: 10.1353/sip.2005.0016
Scherb, Victor I. 2009. Shoulder companions and shoulders in Beowulf. In Robert E. Bjork (ed.), Masculinities and femininities in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, 31–44. London: Brepols. DOI: 10.1484/M.ASMAR-EB.3.3053
Sisam, Kenneth. 1965. The structure of Beowulf. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Smith, D. Vance. 1997. Body doubles: Producing the masculine corpus. In Jeffrey Jerome Cohen & Bonnie Wheeler (eds.), Becoming male in the Middle Ages, 3–19. New York & London: Routledge.
Taylor, Paul Beekman. 1986. The traditional language of treasure in Beowulf. The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 85(2). 191–205.
Tolkien, J. R. R. 1963 [1936]. Beowulf: The monsters and the critics. In Lewis E. Nicholson (ed.), An anthology of Beowulf criticism, 51–103. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Van Meter, David C. 1996. The ritualized presentation of weapons and the ideology of nobility in Beowulf. The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 95(2). 175–189.
Weil, Susanne. 1989. Grace under pressure: “Hand-words”, wyrd, and free will in Beowulf. Pacific Coast Philology 24(1/2). 94–104. DOI: 10.2307/1316605