The Heat of Beowulf

The heat of Beowulf develops a new approach to the aesthetics of Beowulf by engaging with the work of twentieth-century poets Robin Blaser and Jack Spicer, whose avant-garde poetics were informed by a serious encounter with the poem in the seminar of medievalist Arthur G. Brodeur. By considering Blaser's and Spicer's poetics as they were shaped by their encounter with Beowulf, the book is able to open up questions about the non-representational poetics of the poem, rebooting a mid-century approach to aesthetics on a new critical trajectory. The book considers the poem's aesthetics through relationship translation theory, as well as early medieval discourses of sensory-affective experience and twentieth-century phenomenology. The heat of Beowulf reexamines the scholarship on Old English poetics from the mid-twentieth century as it intersected with post-war avant-garde poetics, and how understanding these critical histories can reshape how we read Beowulf now.

Author: Daniel C. Remein
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 12/13/2022
Pages: 328
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.16lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.75d
ISBN13: 9781526150585
ISBN10: 1526150581
BISAC Categories:
- Literary Criticism | Medieval
- Literary Criticism | Modern | 20th Century
- Literary Criticism | Poetry

About the Author
Daniel C. Remein is Associate Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Boston