Sadomasochistic "Beowulf": Queer Narratives of Desire and Dissolution in Old English Literature - Hardcover

by Christopher Vaccaro (Author)

Sadomasochistic "Beowulf" applies gender/queer theory to the study of Old English literature, advancing the knowledge of both fields. Its arguments are formulated through the works of Sigmund Freud, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Roland Barthes, Judith Butler, Leo Bersani, Georges Bataille, and others.

The project explores a field of queer pleasures associated with the dispersal of the self, the extinguishing of the ego, the submission to a more dominant psyche, the postponement of jouissance, and with what Volker Wolterdorff calls "masochistic self-shattering."

The book covers a range of Old English texts from heroic verse narratives to the prose texts of devotional and penitential anthologies and relates these to the poem Beowulf.

Author Biography

Christopher Vaccaro is Senior Lecturer of English language and literature, gender studies, and medieval studies at the University of Vermont, where he has taught since 1999. Professor Vaccaro has three books, Painful Pleasures: sadomasochism in medieval cultures (2022), Tolkien and Alterity (Palgrave-Springer, 2017) and The Body in Tolkien's Legendarium (McFarland, 2013), and has published a number of articles and book chapters.