The Beowulf Poet and His Real Monsters

"The Beowulf Poet and His Real Monsters" opens a new line of inquiry into the Old English poem, specifically trauma theory, which attempts to map the psychological typography of an author and his or her culture, that is, when the text appears to be wrought of traumatic experience. Indicators of a “trauma text” are narrative techniques often associated with postmodernism — expressly, intertextuality, repetition, a dispersed or fragmented voice, and a search for powerful language. The anonymous Beowulf poet made extensive use of all four narrative techniques, suggesting he and his culture were suffering from traumatic stress. The author brings together knowledge from myriad disciplines — among them history, anthropology, sociology, biology, and psychology, with special emphases on the branches of psychoanalysis and neuropsychology — and focuses his trauma-theory reading on the poem’s original language. The monograph was awarded the D. Simon Evans Prize for distinguished scholarship, and it has been acquired by major libraries across the globe, including the British Library, the Library of Congress, Australian National University, Qatar National Library, Notre Dame University, Duke University, and Purdue University — to name just a few.