Volsunga saga Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Robert A. Albano

Critical Essay by Robert A. Albano

SOURCE: Albano, Robert A.”The Role of Women in Anglo-Saxon Culture: Hildeburh in Beowulf and a Curious Counterpart in the Volsungasaga.” English Language Notes XXXII, no. (September 1994): 1-10.

In the following essay, Albano discusses the primacy of vengeance as a motive in the Volsunga Saga and Beowulf and explores the role of women in the two works' vengeance plots.

Scholarly debate has raged in recent decades over the Finn episode in Beowulf without reaching a satisfying conclusion;¹ for in some articles the critics attempt to promote the thematic relevancy of the text by imposing a modern interpretation or framework upon an Anglo-Saxon text. This does not work. Although the relevancy of the episode to the whole of Beowulf appears to be unquestionable, readers should not psychoanalyze the characters of both episode and epic from the perspective of modern society. Two of the characters in the Finn episode, Hengest and Hildeburh,...
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