Transcript Today’s Agenda (Wed 9.2.09)

Today’s Agenda
 Take roll & collect questionnaires that are ready.
 Explain homework for next class.
 Take Anglo-Saxon/Beowulf Quiz.
 Show synopsis of pages 47-80.
 Go over reading questions, highlighting #4.
 Look at Joseph Campbell’s model for analyzing the
universal concept of “The Hero’s Journey.”
 Handouts
 Video Clips (about 20 min)
Homework for next class
 Read Beowulf 80-100 (line 2200 to end);
 Read “The Wanderer” 112-13; “The Wife’s Lament” 113-14
 Think about the reading questions posted online under
the class documents on the “The Anglo-Saxon Age” page
Beowulf (NA 47-80): Brief Synopsis
 Beowulf fights Grendel and fatally wounds him.
 Celebration at Heorot, gifts, wergild, songs of Sigemund’s glory and of the
tragic Finnsburg episode (which shows peace-weaving efforts gone awry).
 Gifts and hospitality are especially interesting at NA 60-61.
 Grendel’s mother comes to Heorot for revenge.
 Beowulf goes after her & kills her, with her weapon, in her underwater lair.
 Another celebration at Heorot, with gifts and words of wisdom
(on leadership and peace [69-73] that are contrasted with Queen M [74-5]).
 Beowulf returns home to the land of the Geats and King Hygelac.
 Beowulf comments on the fragility of peace-weaving (76-77).
 Beowulf recounts his stay among the Danes and presents their gifts to the king.
 The king, then, rewards Beowulf with a great gift and land.