Beowulf on Film

Adaptations and Variations
Erscheinungsjahr 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7864-6338-1
Verlag: McFarland

Buch, Englisch, 220 Seiten, Paperback, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 365 g

Why did the most read work in English literature go without cinematic adaptation for so long? And why, after so much neglect, did five major film adaptations of the poem appear between 1999 and 2008? This book explores the growing list of films based on or inspired by the Old English epic poem <em>Beowulf</em>, and thus joins the ongoing consideration of film medievalism. If the films lead audiences back to the original, the will discover a work of great cultural, linguistic, and inherent visual power - but will the pervasive influence of cinema affect the future reception of <em>Beowulf</em>? The films derived from it constitute an interesting if yet incomplete body of variants with their own specific social commentary: they inevitably sway not only from the story, but also from the themes and concerns of the original to those more interesting to the filmmakers. The films under consideration here, like all others, respond to the zeitgeist: they measure the pulse of how we are processing inherited notions of heroism in contemporary media, and they teach us more about our own times than about the poem from which they derive.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Haydock, Nickolas

Risden, E. L.

Über Autor(innen)

<strong>Nickolas Haydock</strong> is professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez. In addition to movie medievalism and film, he also writes about medieval Scots literature. <br><br><strong>E. L. Risden</strong> is an associate professor of English at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, USA. He has published books and essays on medieval and Renaissance studies as well as poetry and fiction.