Dating Beowulf part IV: summing up

Michael Drout got busy and then I got busy and so my link to his final discussion of the dating of Beowulf is only being posted now. Thanks, Michael.

Dating Beowulf part III

Michael Drout finds a few moments to argue for late dates for Beowulf.

Dating Beowulf part II

Michael Drout continues to blog on this vexed question.

Part three has been delayed by one heck of a day.

Dating Beowulf: a scholarly treat

This is not about "dating" in the usual sense, or Nekkid Beowulf or Nekkid Grendel's mother, but about the debate over the date that the Old English epic Beowulf was written. (A five hundred year range has been suggested, and none of the possibilities are completely without merit!)

Some years ago, Michael Drout, an eminent expert on Old English literature and J.R.R. Tolkien, found that even high school kids with only the vaguest notion of the story could get excited about this issue. (I think that this says something about Drout's style.) So, in what should probably be called the "Year of Beowulf," he is blogging at Wormtalk and Slugspeak about the various possibilities. Part one of Dating Beowulf is here.

And it is a scholarly treat. I hope it amuses others as well.