Sadomasochistic “Beowulf”: Queer Narratives of Desire and Dissolution in Old English Literature

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.