Grieving for a lost America reaches deep across the political spectrum, “Beowulf” provides a healthy response.
Tag Archives: grieving
Destructive Grieving for a Lost America
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged American Dream, Beowulf, Grendel's mother, Marilynne Robinson, politics, When I Was a Child I Read Books Comments closed
Top Gun Takes Down Grendel’s Mom
An unexpected parallel between “Beowulf” and the Tom Cruse film “Top Gun” has given me new appreciation for the 8th century Anglo-Saxon epic and a deeper insight into how at least some guys in the military handle grief.
Win or Lose, Turn to Beowulf
Drew Brees, Super Bowl MVP A few years back, if I remember the article correctly, I came across two interesting statistics about life in America on Super Bowl Sunday. During the game the country’s crime drops to the lowest level of the year. Following the game, however, acts of spousal violence hit their highest levels of […]
Willow Rosenberg as Grendel’s Mother
This past year I was surprised to suddenly find myself a fan of the 1997-2003 television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It would be hard to find a television show with a wackier premise, but it somehow works. In this entry I want to draw some parallels between the show and Beowulf and, especially, between […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Beowulf, Buffy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, dragon, Grendel's mother, Wiglaf, Willow, Zander Comments closed
Battling with Monstrous Grief
I said in the last blog that I am kept fresh by the variety of ways that my students respond to the works that I teach. Sometimes their reactions are entirely unexpected and altogether marvelous. To make this point dramatically, I share here a Beowulf reading story. The student was a 19-year-old African American woman […]
