It was a solid plan to read the acknowledgements first! "I’d adapted it [... but] it still seemed off-limits for me to dig into the actual poem. Well, fuck that. The notion of Beowulf through the lens of the bro-story had been rattling around in my head for a decade." #Broeowulf
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Wait, omg, are
@Craig_Franson and@daniholtz being thanked in this book????#BroeowulfShow this thread -
I might jump into the verse itself and then come back to the author's note so I have my own perceptions clear before I take Headley's reasoning on. But I am excited because it's a fair chunk of author's note and I suspect it will be meaty.
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Genuine opening lines: "Bro! Tell me we still know how to speak of kings!" I am in heaven. This is joy. This is glory. I've sounded out the lines and my mother has looked up in mild alarm and decamped from the living room, so Friday evening is go!
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God has been termed "the Life-lord, that Almighty Big Boss" and I'm here like, yup, love it, keep on, this is exactly what I'm looking for.
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" We all know a boy can’t daddy/ until his daddy’s dead." I AM HOWLING. IF WE ARE GOING TO BRO-DOM BEOWULF WORLD, I NEED TO GO GET OUT THE HARD BOOZE.
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Side note: I am really loving the tone of this poem, half contemptuous in the edges of the telling, all the cracks where you can hear that this is talking back in the telling (and the speaker is perhaps not the biggest fan of these sorts of men).
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"Finally, Beow rolled into righteous rule,/ daddying for decades after his own daddy died" Friends, I am faint. I am dying. I am dead.
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You can hear that quiet undertone in the whole poem. This section "lambs bleating comfort, ease-pleased" to speak of the warriors of Heorot actually says a lot. Also, I'm loving the cadence of this poem. There's some fantastic structural stuff going on.
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God, listen to that line! "His creation was cursed/ under the line of Cain, the kin-killer." That used of "cr" and "kh" sounds, the way it slaps down. This is so good!
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"Grendel hurt, and so he hunted." You can see the choices, the shifts in language here to tell a specific story. I don't remember this in in the Heaney (though I'll admit it's been a good decade or more since I've read the Heaney properly.)
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"Bro, lemme say how fucked they were,/ [...] Why not face/ the Boss, and at death seek/ salves, not scars?" Hmn, there's a really interesting contradiction coming in here between the use of the "bro/ dude/ boss" language and the choice of talking back to the telling.
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I think part of the use of the bro/ dude/ boss stuff sets a very specific tone that's almost at odds with the moments this poem cracks to choose how to position its subjects. It makes the use of "bro" more performative. I almost wonder whether to read it as contempt?
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(Now wondering if I jumped to the poem too soon and should have read the author's note. But then, I don't like to do a first read with the poet's interpretation forefront anyway. AARGH, DEEPLY CONFLICTED.)
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Am I laughing at the fact that the Scylding’s watchmanis giving the same speech as the bouncer at a club? Yes. At the same time, this poem is SO CONSCIOUS of the power dynamic of privileged white man-boys, and so this is playing to so many layers all at once.
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"My father was Ecgtheow./ No doubt you’ve heard of him. He was famous [...] though/ he’s long since left us, everyone, the world over,/ knows my daddy’s name." The use of "knows my daddy's name" is just so darn pointed. This is what I mean by the poem's soft contempt.
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This is a whole bunch of privilege that's being thrown around and it's made so clear in every introduction that we're getting to these characters traditionally positioned as heroes. Headley is pointing to lineage and its use as privilege and power so explicitly!
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(Now vaguely regretting taking out the booze because I almost want to break this poem down properly the first time round, rather than on a later re-read. I'm not doing it justice at all and it deserves better.)
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This conversation between Beowulf and Wulfgar is so interesting. There's a slight given in the choice not to speak with the herald and officer (likely in response to being called "boys") and only acknowledged in the narration.
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Almost immediately after Beowulf notes he'll only speak with Hrothgar, Wulfgar is noted as "renowned and warranted/ for wisdom and for the tempered edge of his nature." It seems so pointed but I can't tell if it's just this version or if it is in the original too.
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Flagging the last tweet up as a potential question! (
@ISASaxonists@elrambo@katiegtj@Craig_Franson, help?) I've never read the original, only the Heaney, so I wouldn't know if this is a slight added or interpreted by Headley.#BroeowulfShow this thread -
"They’re well-dressed,/ thus well-born, and thus worthy." There it is again, that commentary! It's so subversive because you could really easily read it as genuinely Wulfgar's intent, but it pushes back against that as we read it. We're meant to see this.
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"Beowulf arose, and around him rose his armored army, [...] They hastened behind their leader [...] Their battle-bringer stood before the fire, glowing, [...] His helmet made him look harder,/ so he spoke from beneath it" The whole section feels like commentary!
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I'm loving the way Headley's bringing in all of these additional undertones. The moment we go from bro/ dude to priviledge and the power of white boys of a particular lineage, we also move to boys/ men playing at being big men and the performance of that choice.
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I underestimated this poem. It's so fucking clever. There's so much happening under the surface here despite how quick it reads that I can barely keep up.
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"Yes: I mean—I /may/ have bathed in the blood of beasts, [...] gone skinny-dipping in a sleeping sea/ and made sashimi of some sea monsters./ Anyone who fucks with the Geats? Bro, they have to fuck/ with me" I'M SORRY I AM IMMEDIATELY BACK TO BEING TERRIBLY DELIGHTED.
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Beowulf's choice to fight Grendel barehanded within the bro narrative shifts so abruptly from its original conception as a mark of heroic prowess to something nonsense a fratboy would do despite danger just to prove he can. It's all just *kisses fingertips*
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"Bro, Fate can fuck you up." Words of wisdom from
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I don't know what it means that Bro Beowulf is oddly less gay than I expected despite this extended description of how he expects Grendel to tear him apart, just the two of them. I am not prepared for poetry to not be gay all the time???
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Oh INTERESTING. "I’m humiliated my hall-force has bent to Grendel’s/ greed" says Hrothgar, just after that discussion of how he built his kingdom and the ways in which power and wealth accrued. The poem is calling us back to Grendel not bowing to silver here too.
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