Grendel Review

1
Grendel Review
2
Objective

• To review the novel Grendel as a postmodern work
  of literature.

3
Modernism vs. Postmodernism

• Modernism
• Emphasis on impressionistic writing that strays
  from traditional forms of narration.
• Moves away from objective narration with clear
  moral positions.
• Laments a fragmented view of human subjectivity,
  but still holds that art can provide a sense of
  unity, coherence, and meaning.

• Postmodernism
• Accepts and even celebrates the lack of meaning
  in the world.
• Does not pretend that art can provide meaning.
  Rather, delights in the nonsense.

4
Postmodern Literature

• Carries modernist styles and practices to
  extremes.
• Liberated by the complete breakdown of categories
  that are now seen as outdated and claustrophobic
• Hybrid genres that erode the distinctions, For
  instance, between literature and journalism,
  literature and autobiography, and literature and
  history.

5
Gardner and Postmodernism

• Grendel contains many of the characteristics of
  postmodern literature
• genre-bending
• assumption of the absence of meaning in life
• mistrust of art to provide meaning
• Awareness of its own place in the literary world
  metafiction

6
Metafiction

• The text - either directly or through the
  characters within - is 'aware' that it is a form
  of fiction.
• Often contains fiction within fiction
• Lines break down between characters and audience

7
More on Gardner

• Some of his other works do away with postmodern
  techniques completely.
• He claimed that postmodernists were often too
  pessimistic.
• Critics are divided on his work.

8
Themes in Grendel

• The Meaning and/or Meaninglessness of Life
• The Power of Art
• The Need for Community
• Good vs. Evil
• Freedom vs. Determinism

9
What Anglo-Saxon Literature has in Common with
the Postmodern World

• Beowulf
• Contains a pessimistic ending the loyalty of the
  clan breaks down in Beowulfs final moments.
  Wyglaf can never again really trust his men.

10
The Seafarer and the Wanderer

• Both contain an anxiety about the breakdown of
  community.
• Both articulate a fear concerning the
  meaninglessness of life.
• Pain of isolation

11

• William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)              
   THE SECOND COMING
•     Turning and turning in the widening gyre    
  The falcon cannot hear the falconer     Things
  fall apart the centre cannot hold     Mere
  anarchy is loosed upon the world,     The
  blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere    
  The ceremony of innocence is drowned     The
  best lack all conviction, while the worst    
  Are full of passionate intensity.
•     Surely some revelation is at hand    
  Surely the Second Coming is at hand.     The
  Second Coming! Hardly are those words out    
  When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi    
  Troubles my sight a waste of desert sand     A
  shape with lion body and the head of a man,    
  A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,     Is
  moving its slow thighs, while all about it    
  Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.    
  The darkness drops again but now I know     That
  twenty centuries of stony sleep     Were vexed
  to nightmare by a rocking cradle,     And what
  rough beast, its hour come round at last,    
  Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

12
Take Home Essay

• Revise the AP practice essay according to the
  rubric.
• Use SPECIFIC textual details to back up claims.
• Model you essay after the example of a 9.
• Do not rely on simple formulaic responses.

13
Journal

• How effective is Gardners postmodern novel as a
  work based on the ancient epic poem Beowulf? How
  does this kind of writing differ from other works
  that we have read this year?