Tag Archives: Beowulf poet

Teach Beowulf to Combat Violence

By Robin Bates | Published: November 21, 2019

To teach students how to understand and respond to violence, Beowulf is a go-to work.

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“Beowulf” Understands U.S. Violence

By Robin Bates | Published: August 7, 2019

 Thursday When I launched this blog over 10 years ago, I called it Better Living through Beowulf because Beowulf is the starting text for those of us specializing in British Literature. I used Beowulf to represent all of literature and felt free to write about any literary work that provides insight into the life we […]

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Fantasy and the Problem of Violence

By Robin Bates | Published: June 5, 2019

Thursday Today I will be delivering the following talk as part of Sewanee’s Lifelong Learning series, delivered in a venue that used to be my high school and where I spoke 50 years ago. It may sound strange to some of you that a literary scholar such as myself would talk about fantasy. Aren’t we […]

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Grendel’s Mother, Archetype of Grief

By Robin Bates | Published: May 8, 2019

Thursday I report today on a memorable encounter I had with an African American alum upon my first post-retirement return to St. Mary’s College of Maryland. I was talking with a former colleague when Candace looked in and began reminiscing. I didn’t recognize her, even after she told me her name, but something clicked when […]

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Grendel Violence in Sri Lanka

By Robin Bates | Published: April 21, 2019

Monday Often, following mass killings such as occurred yesterday in Sri Lanka, I turn to Beowulf since few works understand the horrors of internecine violence so well. Beowulf was already on my mind as friends have been sending me word of new discoveries about the poem, and now we see killer trolls once again on […]

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Pelosi, Mueller vs. Grendel Trump

By Robin Bates | Published: January 21, 2019

Monday John Stoehr, who edits The Editorial Board, had a provocative column recently that is worth contemplating on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Stoehr argues that sadism is the animating principle of the Republican Party, with Donald Trump being its purest expression. Whether this is in fact true of most Republicans, Trump himself is certainly […]

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What Would Beowulf Do?

By Robin Bates | Published: November 14, 2016

Beowulf offers us guidance for fighting back against Trumpism. Here’s a step-by-step account of the three monsters that will be facing liberals and what they must do.

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Grendel Strikes in Orlando

By Robin Bates | Published: June 12, 2016

In what has become a grim tradition for this blog, I rerun my post on Grendelian violence in response to the Orlando mass killing at a gay bar.

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To Defeat White Militiamen, Be Beowulf

By Robin Bates | Published: February 15, 2016

White militiamen rode into the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge like Grendel, but they left as though they had gone mano a mano with Beowulf. The fed essentially took a page out of the Geat warrior’s book and came away similarly successful.

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