“Fueled by massive amounts of money from multiple governments and international organizations, climate change research was a growth industry, a boom town, a cash cow that emitted no methane, only cash”
Ecochondriacs, p. 2
The Monster and the Dragon
“The malevolence of Grendel is hot, like malice always is. The rage of the dragon is cold, like the gold it is acquiring or defending. The dragon hates, but it is nothing personal. Grendel hates, and everything about it is personal. With the dragon, killing is a means to an end. With Grendel, killing is the end itself. The dragon is a night-flying outsider. Grendel is a cannibal. So this society is surrounded—hot enmity within and cold enmity without”
Quite Attractive Thanes
“The morning after Grendel is killed, Hrothgar receives the good news and comes out to look at the grisly arm. He comes, a great warrior king, having spent the night in a warm bed with Wealtheow, and when he comes, he advances with a troop of maidens following him (922-926), a bevy of curvaceous thanes”
Beowulf’s Inner Child
“But to represent this epic poem as a portrayal of the internal subjective struggles of a narcissistic modern is as anachronistic and foolish as to start looking for Beowulf’s inner child. The poet is addressing a problem which this people as a people knew they had. A poem like this should not be used as a blank screen on which we project problems that we know we have. Maybe Hrothgar was actually worried about global warming or high cholesterol”
However Hard to Imagine
“Their long-established way of doing things gives them all the civilization-building power of a biker gang. It is hard for us to imagine Viking angst, but I want to argue that the author of Beowulf is delivering a vision of exactly that”
Nobility at the End of Its Tether
“The paganism that is so evident throughout this poem is presented to us by a thoroughly Christian poet, and he does not show us this paganism in order to say, ‘See, pagans can be noble, too—even without Jesus!’ Rather, he is doing precisely the opposite—he is refusing to engage in a fight with a heathen straw man of his own devising. He acknowledges the high nobility that was there, but then he bluntly shows us that nobility at the point of profound despair . . . This is nobility at the end of its tether”
Drank the Smoke
“She dreaded doom of battle, the days to come
Would be devastating, deadly, dark, and shameful.
There would be sorrow and sadness. The sky drank the smoke”
Ascending to God
“Then for the king they kindled a colossal blaze,
Clouds of smoke curled upward, closing the sky,
Black smoke, blaze red, and blending in sorrow
Was the crackling fire and keening people—quiet was the wind—
Until the body burst and the bones were blackened
By the great heat at the heart of it”
A Burning Bier
“He said to build him a bier when his breath was gone,
Where we burn his bones, the barrow should be high,
A magnificent memorial, massive and worthy of him”
Departing Middle-Earth
“So Beowulf, that brave one, when the barrow-guard he fought,
A conflict deeply contested, he could not know
In what manner of men he should leave middle-earth at last”