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A review by bookshopghost
Basilisks and Beowulf: Monsters in the Anglo-Saxon World by Tim Flight
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.5
I had such mixed feelings about this book.
My own academic work has primarily been on Medieval literature, so I approached this book with much excitement. I found, however, that as well-researched and as readable as it was, it felt like there was a strongly Christianised bias running through it that was preventing some alternate readings from being offered. The main theory running through the text is that boundaries were of vital importance to the Anglo-Saxons, and that the main horror around monsters was their existence on the ‘wrong’ side of the civilisation boundary, and their occasional desire to cross that boundary, to be mearcstapan. I would argue that the boundaries Flight referred to were far more permeable, far more sheer than he implies in this text, and that he made incredibly sweeping generalisations regarding the way that all Anglo-Saxons would have thought.
I enjoy annotating my books and trust me when I say that there were times that my annotations got somewhat heated. But I deeply enjoyed the ability to call on academic research done some time ago, and formulate my own ideas in the margins; and that this text inspired me to do that is testament to the quality of Flight’s book. I may not have agreed with all of his arguments, but found them all to be intellectually stimulating and interesting.
Overall, I am glad I read this book. It has helped me to better understand my own thoughts around this topic, and I really enjoyed the incorporation of primary sources in pictures and passages.
My own academic work has primarily been on Medieval literature, so I approached this book with much excitement. I found, however, that as well-researched and as readable as it was, it felt like there was a strongly Christianised bias running through it that was preventing some alternate readings from being offered. The main theory running through the text is that boundaries were of vital importance to the Anglo-Saxons, and that the main horror around monsters was their existence on the ‘wrong’ side of the civilisation boundary, and their occasional desire to cross that boundary, to be mearcstapan. I would argue that the boundaries Flight referred to were far more permeable, far more sheer than he implies in this text, and that he made incredibly sweeping generalisations regarding the way that all Anglo-Saxons would have thought.
I enjoy annotating my books and trust me when I say that there were times that my annotations got somewhat heated. But I deeply enjoyed the ability to call on academic research done some time ago, and formulate my own ideas in the margins; and that this text inspired me to do that is testament to the quality of Flight’s book. I may not have agreed with all of his arguments, but found them all to be intellectually stimulating and interesting.
Overall, I am glad I read this book. It has helped me to better understand my own thoughts around this topic, and I really enjoyed the incorporation of primary sources in pictures and passages.