Sadomasochistic Beowulf applies gender/queer theory to the study of Old English literature, advancing the knowledge of both fields. Its arguments are formulated through the works of Sigmund Freud, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Roland Barthes, Judith Butler, Leo Bersani, Georges Bataille, and others. The book covers a range of Old English texts from heroic verse narratives to the prose texts of devotional and penitential anthologies and relates these to the poem Beowulf.