Paper #1: It's Just a Theory!

NOTE: The reading for Tuesday and the points to consider are in the post BELOW this one...

Paper #1: It’s Just a Theory!

“I regularly found myself muttering speeches written a thousand years ago as I watched their contemporary equivalents unfold on the news. This moment, and the moments before it…are things that concerned the Beowulf poet and concern this translator, too” (Headley, Introduction).

INTRO: In Chapter 1 of Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction, Culler defines theory as “interdisciplinary…analytical and speculative…a critique of common sense…[and] reflexive, thinking about thinking, enquiry into the categories we use in making sense of things” (14-15) A theory can be used to examine or critique a literary work, but a theory can also be a literary work itself. We can often use literature, and the ideas that pop out of the stories, characters, and language, to examine the world around us, and make us question the cultural norms that we take for granted. Seen in this light, Beowulf, especially when translated in a ‘modern’ way, can become a theory about many different things: literature, genre, gender, race, belief, morality, etc.

PROMPT: For this paper, I want you to use some aspect of Headley’s translation of Beowulf as a THEORY to examine some aspect OUTSIDE the text itself. By this I mean, use it to examine our ideas about, say, what it means to be a man or woman, or whether we think everything happens for a reason, or what makes a text literary, or what makes a hero or a villain, etc. These are just examples, and there are TONS of ideas you could explore theoretically from the perspective of Beowulf. Remember that the poem is your LENS: use it to examine something outside the text from the perspective of this book/its author/its translator.

REQUIREMENTS: In your paper, you should introduce your theory through a close reading of ONE specific passage in the poem. Introduce this quote, quote it in full, and then explain how you read it paying close attention to the language. Don’t just summarize it and don’t assume that everyone understand it on a first reading. Help us read/see what you see in it. THEN explain how you could use this general theory to examine another idea, behavior, classification, value, type, or custom in society. Be SPECIFIC and use an example from the outside world to explore with your theory. For example, if you want to examine modern theories of masculinity (what it means to be a man) through Beowulf, find some example in the modern world to point to—it could be a show, an advertisement, a custom, etc. Use the passage from Beowulf to show us a new way to read and understand this modern sense of gender (if you choose to look at gender—it’s just an example).

THE FINE PRINT

• Should be at least 3-4 pages double space, though you can do more.
• Be sure to quote from Beowulf and close read (analyze) the passage.
• Examine some outside ‘text’ through the lens of the passage/poem.
• The paper is due IN-CLASS on Thursday, September 19^th. We will spend the entire class discussing our different theories of the poem, so be there or be square!