The Four Funerals in Beowulf And the Structure of the Poem

"It is well known that the Old English poem Beowulf begins and ends with funerals and includes a third as a digression part way through. Now, for the first time, a fourth funeral (hitherto disguised as poetic imagery) is identified from archaeological evidence. A detailed analysis of the four funerals establishes their thematic and structural importance, revealing them as pillars around which the poem is built. The port is shown to be a literate antiquarian of considerable structural skill; one who explores feminist issues, plays with numbers and enjoys a pun; who establishes an ideal then probes its darker side." "This book will be invaluable to all students of the poem for its fresh and detailed reading, its identification of a coherent structure and its establishment of the integrity of the surviving text."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved