22 February 2013

Better Living Through Beowulf

While checking through Google's Image Search for a good illustration of Beowulf's death, I noticed that one image was on a site called "betterlivingthroughbeowulf.com". This is quirky enough to give me a quick "HAH" of pleasure and a quick check on the site.

The site's tagline is "How Great Literature Can Change Your Life." Beowulf was highlighted in the site name because the author is also promoting his book, "How Beowulf Can Save America: An Epic Hero's Guide to Defeating the Politics of Rage." Here is the list of Beowulf-related postings on the blog. As an example of the category, here is a post called "Obama's Star, Beowulf's Sword" on the subject of President Obama's second Inaugural Speech.

I've also wondered from time to time what aspects of Beowulf's story are relevant these days, so full marks to Robin R. Bates for the titles of his blog and book. Not being American, I am not as deeply immersed in the push and pull of American politics as Bates is.

As for the illustration, there's this: