Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 46194
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Varnam , Laura
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: Poems for the Women of Beowulf: A ‘Contemporary Medieval’ Project
  • Source: Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies 13, 1- 2 ( 2022): Pages 105 - 121. Available with a subscription from Springer: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41280-022-00225-3
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Journal Article
  • Subject (See Also): Beowulf, Old English Epic Creative Writing Feminist Theory Literature- Verse Reception Teaching Translation
  • Award Note: Feminae Article of the Month March 2023
  • Geographic Area: British Isles
  • Century: 8- 9
  • Primary Evidence:
  • Illustrations:
  • Table:
  • Abstract: This article is centred upon seven new poems from my poetry project inspired by the women of Beowulf. To contextualise the project, the poems are framed with a creative-critical reflection on their genesis in my undergraduate Beowulf class, where I teach the original poem through modern translation, adaptation, and creative response. I discuss my indebtedness to feminist scholarship on the "overwhelmingly masculine" nature of Beowulf (Overing 1990) and briefly survey recent feminist translations and adaptations. I propose my poetry as a form of creative close reading and an example of Lees and Overing’s ‘contemporary medieval in practice’ (Lees and Overing 2019). I also offer short notes on the poems and their relationship to questions of gender, voice, and autonomy. [Reproduced from the Springer Link website: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41280-022-00225-3]
  • Related Resources:
  • Author's Affiliation: University College, Oxford
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 2022.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 20405960 (print); 20405979 (online)