Lacanian Implications of Departures in Zemeckis’s Beowulf from Beowulf, the Old English Epic

Although Robert Zemeckis’s film Beowulf (2007) is a re-writing of the Old English epic Beowulf with a shifting of perspective, certain details in the film can only be understood by referring to the poem. That is, a better understanding of the film is tied closely to an awareness of certain narrative...

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Autor principal:	Nurten Birlik
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Lodz University Press 2021
Materias:	beowulf zemeckis adaptation lacanian criticism Literature (General) PN1-6790
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/bc3ef4a4755748529b4401b922d62863
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:bc3ef4a4755748529b4401b922d628632021-12-01T06:51:57ZLacanian Implications of Departures in Zemeckis’s Beowulf from Beowulf, the Old English Epic2083-29312084-574X10.18778/2083-2931.11.12https://doaj.org/article/bc3ef4a4755748529b4401b922d628632021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttps://czasopisma.uni.lodz.pl/textmatters/article/view/11266https://doaj.org/toc/2083-2931https://doaj.org/toc/2084-574XAlthough Robert Zemeckis’s film Beowulf (2007) is a re-writing of the Old English epic Beowulf with a shifting of perspective, certain details in the film can only be understood by referring to the poem. That is, a better understanding of the film is tied closely to an awareness of certain narrative elements in the epic. The emphasis on Beowulf in the poem shifts to the Mother in the film. This shift obviously leads to a recontextualization of the narrative elements of the former text. In the epic, Grendel is left without a father; however, in the film, he is fathered by Hrothgar but this biological fathering does not lead to linguistic castration. In their case, things are reversed: rather than the infant being castrated by the Law/language, the biological father is led to a psychic regression due to the son. This appears to be a dramatization of the conflicts between the (m)Other and the shared Other/the representative of the paternal metaphor: that is, Hrothgar. This time, the (m)Other conquers the representative of the paternal metaphor and annuls his masculinity, which radically changes the way in which we evaluate the course of events in the film. These departures make more sense if they are analyzed against the background of Lacanian epistemology. This paper aims to explore the film’s departures from the poem by approaching it from a Lacanian perspective.Nurten BirlikLodz University Pressarticlebeowulfzemeckisadaptationlacanian criticismLiterature (General)PN1-6790ENText Matters, Iss 11, Pp 178-185 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	beowulf zemeckis adaptation lacanian criticism Literature (General) PN1-6790
spellingShingle	beowulf zemeckis adaptation lacanian criticism Literature (General) PN1-6790 Nurten Birlik Lacanian Implications of Departures in Zemeckis’s Beowulf from Beowulf, the Old English Epic
description	Although Robert Zemeckis’s film Beowulf (2007) is a re-writing of the Old English epic Beowulf with a shifting of perspective, certain details in the film can only be understood by referring to the poem. That is, a better understanding of the film is tied closely to an awareness of certain narrative elements in the epic. The emphasis on Beowulf in the poem shifts to the Mother in the film. This shift obviously leads to a recontextualization of the narrative elements of the former text. In the epic, Grendel is left without a father; however, in the film, he is fathered by Hrothgar but this biological fathering does not lead to linguistic castration. In their case, things are reversed: rather than the infant being castrated by the Law/language, the biological father is led to a psychic regression due to the son. This appears to be a dramatization of the conflicts between the (m)Other and the shared Other/the representative of the paternal metaphor: that is, Hrothgar. This time, the (m)Other conquers the representative of the paternal metaphor and annuls his masculinity, which radically changes the way in which we evaluate the course of events in the film. These departures make more sense if they are analyzed against the background of Lacanian epistemology. This paper aims to explore the film’s departures from the poem by approaching it from a Lacanian perspective.
format	article
author	Nurten Birlik
author_facet	Nurten Birlik
author_sort	Nurten Birlik
title	Lacanian Implications of Departures in Zemeckis’s Beowulf from Beowulf, the Old English Epic
title_short	Lacanian Implications of Departures in Zemeckis’s Beowulf from Beowulf, the Old English Epic
title_full	Lacanian Implications of Departures in Zemeckis’s Beowulf from Beowulf, the Old English Epic
title_fullStr	Lacanian Implications of Departures in Zemeckis’s Beowulf from Beowulf, the Old English Epic
title_full_unstemmed	Lacanian Implications of Departures in Zemeckis’s Beowulf from Beowulf, the Old English Epic
title_sort	lacanian implications of departures in zemeckis’s beowulf from beowulf, the old english epic
publisher	Lodz University Press
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/bc3ef4a4755748529b4401b922d62863
work_keys_str_mv	AT nurtenbirlik lacanianimplicationsofdeparturesinzemeckissbeowulffrombeowulftheoldenglishepic
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Lacanian Implications of Departures in Zemeckis’s Beowulf from Beowulf, the Old English Epic

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