Beowulf

This course will primarily consist in the task of translating the remarkably challenging poem Beowulf.  We will be reading smaller portions of the vast secondary texts as we negotiate and debate issues raised by our readings and contemporary scholarship. As we work through the language of the text, comparing translations with our own, we will also be tracking concepts. Each student will be using the communal Wiki for posting translations as well as for starting individual projects on word clusters/concepts. The requirements of the course as as follows: active participation in discussion of assigned topics and translations in class and online (40 percent); three oral presentations, one on an assigned section of the text and secondary reading (15 percent) one as a first resaerch topic which ties in analysis of one or two words (15 percent) and one as a final research presentation which develops the word/cluster concept in relation to secondary materials (30 percent). The last two will be turned in and should be approximately five and eight pages.