Medievalist Elaine Treharne teaches a course on Beowulf at Stanford, and one of her primary theoretical questions for her students is, “What is (the) Text? … What constitutes Beowulf?” So she got to thinking. She wondered what she and her students would do “with a social media version of the poem.” What ensued is a distillation of the great epic in 100 tweets, which you can read over here.
#Beowulf
Sun Ra’s Avant Poetics
UbuWeb has posted an excellent collection of avant jazz and poetry from Sun Ra and his famed Arkestra. Much of the suite dates from a 1977 on-air performance in Philadelphia. (Bonus: An excerpt from “At Sun Ra’s Grave” by Jake Adam York.)
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Dolly Parton’s Song Roars with Need / And Envy
The University of Tennessee will offer history students a seminar on Dolly Parton’s life, so this is as good a time as any to revisit Sherman Alexie’s poem, “Ode to Jolene.”
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With One Eye Squinted
“I can with one eye squinted take it all as a blessing.” The New Yorker reports on “Flannery O’Connor‘s Manhattan Memorial” and pitch-perfect quotation.
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Literary Destinations
Over at The Week, Jeva Lange recommends books based on where your travels are taking you this summer. For other recommended reading, don’t miss our Great Second-Half Book Preview.
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Beowulf slays monster Grendel, slays Grandel’s mother, slays a dragon, and dies. The end.