RE-READING GRENDEL'S MOTHER: BEOWULF AND THE ANGLO-SAXON METRICAL CHARMS

Traditionally, critical assessments of Grendel's mother tend to be overly reductive, focusing primarily, if not exclusively, on her gender and her relationship with her son-when she is even considered independently at all. This essay suggests that a more nuanced understanding of her significance in the poem, especially as it could have registered with contemporary audiences, might come from recognition of the parallels between Beowulf and the Anglo-Saxon metrical charm tradition. Specifically, reading Grendel's mother in terms of such parallels provides a contemporary interpretive paradigm that not only incorporates the facts of her gender and maternity while avoiding common lexical and critical concepts of anti-type or assumptions of monstrosity, but also gives insights into the ways that original audiences might have processed the more peculiar textual details associated with her into a cohesive whole, with her as an irreducibly complex figure at its center.