[Rhun charioteer]

The original audience of Beuowulf would not have associated Grendel or his mother with africans, the sons of Ham, or anything of the kind. At best the author is assuming Tolkien or the English scholars would have imposed some sort of 19th century Racial nous on the text-which...maybe happened? Tolkien wasn't however interested in...what did 19th century race theorists or 17th century writers who would have said things like, "the sons of Ham have been cursed into subjection" thought about the text(also it wasn't rediscovered until the 18th century so).


But then again, this is the sort of "scholarship" that is why academia by and large is a useless waste of time.

On that note-the idea of "marginalized" voices is just stupid. It permeates critical theory and modern academic discourse. Essentially it comes down to a Foucaltian idea of the world, those with unjust privilege speak and those who are oppressed can't. Which is not the sort of view the ancient anglo Saxons would have had and is definitely something Tolkien would have found nonsensical.