Authors covered: The Beowulf authors

Please read Beowulf and pay special attention to the tradition of boasting. You will need to distinguish this practice—both a textual and cultural practice—from speech acts. The coastguard, for instance, makes more of a speech act when Beowulf lands on his shoreline. Consider, though, the way the Beowulf responds to Unferth. You will also need to consult the article on boasting This is an important aspect of your reading, and it will help you with your discussion “question” for this week. Most importantly, though, enjoy this text.

This week, you are to write a boast. Your task is to write a boast in response to Unferth. However, you must put your boast into modern English! Although you should be sure to include the central claims of Beowulf’s boast and, quite frankly, insults to Unferth, you do have the freedom to play around with this a bit. Perhaps you could spice up your boast with vernacular phrases from some of our culture’s best boaster—hip hop stars come to mind, but there are plenty of exemplars in this art. Not to get political, but Donald Trump is also fond of the boast.