Sufficient Tragedy: Masculinity as Cruel Optimism in Beowulf

This article offers a new framework for approaching masculinity in Beowulf by suggesting that masculinity is dependent upon what affect theorist Lauren Berlant (2011) calls "cruel optimism": when an individual pursues something that is an obstacle to their flourishing. This article traces how Beowulf constructs a "masculine economy" sustained by a cruel optimistic attachment to an ideal and unobtainable masculinity, taking the flyting contest between Unferð and Beowulf (ll. 499–558) as an illustrative example of how homosocial competitions that promise masculinity are just as likely to unravel it. This article then examines Beowulf's defeat and death (ll. 2711b–2820), to demonstrate that failure is intrinsic to cruel optimism. By examining the subversive possibilities of what Jack Halberstam calls "queer failure", this reading raises questions about whether Beowulf the poem criticises and Beowulf the man refuses the cruelty of masculine striving.