This thesis compares the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf and John Gardner& / #8217 / s novel Grendel in terms of their generic relations within a framework of Bakhtin& / #8217 / s genre theory. The analysis restricts its theoretical framework to basically two essays by Mikhail M. Bakhtin, namely Epic and Novel and Discourse in the Novel included in Michael Holquist& / #8217 / s The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin (1981).
This study argues that Beowulf represents a monologic world, which is hierarchically distanced from the present. As Bakhtin puts it, the epic presents an already completed world placed in an absolute past, which demands a pious attitude as it is hierarchically above the reader. Gardner& / #8217 / s Grendel, on the other hand, is a retelling of the Beowulf story through the monster& / #8217 / s eye in the contemporary world. It suggests a dialogue between the elevated world of the epic hero Beowulf and the novelistic world of Grendel to achieve multiplicity in a truly Bakhtinian sense. For Gardner& / #8217 / s version enables the monstrous other, which is Grendel, to raise its voice. By changing the temporal order and narrative perspective, Gardner succeeds in re-writing an epic story in the novelistic zone of maximal proximity to the present. This thesis, however, argues that although Gardner& / #8217 / s Grendel displays all the novelistic features, basically multiplicity and contemporaneity, as put forward by Bakhtin, it still celebrates the ideal world of the epic.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/1218049/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 July 2003 |
| Creators | Dalbak, Emine |
| Contributors | Caliskan, Sevda |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.A. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for public access |
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