Beowulf Book Club 1: 1–399

This is a recording of the first session of our Beowulf Book Club. Thanks to everyone who came along; it was nice to be able to put faces to names!

We went in with ambitious goals: to cover the first thousand lines of the poem. But we found far too much to discuss, and only made it through about 400 lines. No matter! It’s worth taking our time with this poem.

We covered:

• The nature, authorship, and dating of the poem

• The genealogy of the Danish royal house, the Scyldings

• The role of the hall as a symbol of sovereignty

• Grendel’s origin story

• What lies behind the sea-warden’s challenge

• Protocol in the king’s court

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