ENL5206 – Spring 2027 – Sprenkle

In this course, students will engage with the most widely read piece of Old English literature, Beowulf, in its original language and manuscript context. While most undergraduate English majors encounter this 3,182-line poem in an introductory British literature course as the prime example of Old English literary culture, there is scant evidence that Beowulf was widely circulated in early medieval England, and our only extant copy barely survived a library fire in the 18th century. The single manuscript itself is also quite a late example of the language, predating the 1066 CE Norman Conquest by only about half a century. How then did this peculiar tale become the modern starting point for studying Old English? To try to answer this question, we will read a wide variety of scholarship selected to introduce students to key discussions and developments in Beowulf scholarship in the 20th and 21st centuries, as well as explore new directions the field is taking. Each week we will translate specific sections, compare our translations to published ones, and read articles analyzing those lines through a variety of lenses (historical, linguistic, legal, comparative, feminist, ecological, postcolonial, psychoanalytic, etc). In doing so, we will explore the murky depths of this millennium-old poem that has continuously fascinated scholars from a wide array of disciplines and, like King Hrothgar interpreting the ancient hilt of a giant's sword, unpack Beowulf's ever-evolving legacy and potentiality. Previous experience with Old English is not required, as language instruction will be incorporated into the class and materials and readings will be adapted to fit each student's level of familiarity with Old English.