Title: Beowulf
Rating: 4 Stars
I occasionally set weird goals for myself. This year, one of my goals was to read four epic poems. Having read The Odyssey, Paradise Lost, The Inferno, and now Beowulf, that goal has been met. The Inferno will always have a special place in my heart because reading it pretty much turned me into the semi-serious reader that I am today, so it’s always going to be the top of any epic poems list of mine. Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey was so stirring that I’d place that second. I’d put Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf just a bit below that and then Paradise Lost would be the trailer. Having read her translation of The Odyssey, I’ll probably read Wilson’s recently released Iliad. I should probably tackle Virgil’s Aeneid at some point as well.
I have a weird personal memory of Beowulf as well. I think that I wrote about it when it happened. Several years ago, I was vacationing in London. One of my favorite places to go in London is the National Library. It has a fascinating collection of rotating objects. Depending upon what they’re displaying, you can see everything from a grocery list written by Michelangelo (drawn in pictures because of his illiterate housekeeper) to song lyrics written by McCartney / Lennon to Mozart’s composition book to signed letters by Elizabeth I. For history geek, it’s an amazing place.
When I was last there, there was an Old English copy of Beowulf written around the year 1000 CE. I remember being vaguely impressed that a thousand year old book managed to survive. It wasn’t until sometime later that I learned that that was the oldest known copy of Beowulf. Not only that, it is the first known example of Old English literature. I was unknowingly looking at the first instance of literature written in what would develop into my language. It was an amazing realization.
Translated in 2000 by the Nobel Prizing winning Seamus Heaney, this is considered one of the best translations of Beowulf. What I particularly enjoyed about this version is that the Old English and the translation are paired on facing pages with matching line numbers.
It’s fascinating to me how different Old English is from modern English. If you squint really hard, you might be able to make out maybe one or two words of the Old English. Otherwise, it is incomprehensible. I regularly read, with minimal trouble, Shakespeare’s Elizabethan English, which was written over 400 years ago. However, the thousand year old Old English is no way understandable. It’s interesting to me how language morphs over time.
It is a beautiful translation. As I’ve noted in my other posts about the epic poems, they are much more powerful when read aloud. Beowulf was written in a dialect of Old English that was heavily influenced by Anglo Saxon. Apparently the Anglo Saxon language is alliteration heavy. Heaney worked to integrate alliteration into his translation. When reading aloud, his words flowed wonderfully.
Although considered the first instance of Old English literature, the plot does not take place in England. It takes place in Denmark and Southern Sweden. Beowulf is a great warrior from the gothic tribe of the Geats. A Danish king named Hrothgar (and yes, the names are difficult) is being terrorized by a monster with the unlikely name of Grendel. Every night Grendel comes into Hrothgar’s hall and steals away a couple of warriors. Everyone is terrified and the hall becomes desolate.
Beowulf hears about the Danish king’s problems and sees this as an opportunity to cover himself in warrior glory. He and a bunch of men decide to climb into a boat and row over to Denmark to help. Grendel is a fearsome beast but Beowulf decides that, for maximum glory, he will take it on in single combat with no weapons. Grendel creeps in and kills a new victim. An alarm is raised. Beowulf and Grendel battle mano a mano (mano a beasto?). In the ensuing struggle, Beowulf tears off Grendel’s arm. Grendel sneaks off to die.
Beowulf is celebrated as a hero and Hrothgar rewards him with treasure. However, Hrothgar’s problems are not over. Since even monsters have mothers, Grendel’s mother wreaks vengeance upon Hrothgar by attacking the hall herself. Beowulf once again sees this as an opportunity for valor. They track Grendel’s mother to her underwater lair. Beowulf and Grendel’s mother battle with Beowulf once again coming out on top. Laden with even more glory and rewards, Beowulf heads back home.
Back in the land of the Geats, eventually Beowulf’s king dies without leaving heirs. Beowulf becomes king and he rules successfully for fifty years.
After some fifty years pass, one of the Geats finds a secret path to a treasure filled lair protected by a dragon. He steals something and sneaks away. When the dragon wakes up and discovers the theft, he becomes enraged and vows vengeance. To protect his people, Beowulf decides that he must combat the dragon.
Let’s sit on that a moment. At the very youngest, Beowulf had to have been at least twenty when he took on Grendel and his mother. It is now fifty years later. That means that he has to be somewhere in his seventies at best. No matter how great of a hero he is, is sending a seventy-something man to fight an actual, fire-breathing dragon really the smart play here?
Regardless, he sets off with his bravest warriors. Upon sight of the dragon, all of the warriors (except for one, Wiglaf) immediately run away in terror. Beowulf and the dragon fight, with Wiglaf assisting. Eventually Beowulf does slay the dragon, but in so doing, he suffers a mortal wound as well.
In death, Beowulf is placed on a funeral pyre with treasures and is set ablaze. As this is happening, it is foretold that the Geats are now pretty much fucked without Beowulf. They will be invaded and taken over. Well, I guess it sucks to be you.
That’s about it. There are some strange side digressions where some random person just says, let me tell about this unrelated action and off they go. Other than that, it really is about battling three monsters. It is definitely in an epic form. You have the hero going off on a journey to prove his worth. You have the hero sacrificing himself to save his home and hearth. It is stirring in action.
If you have any desire to go off and do your own epic poem reading yourself, Beowulf (especially this translation) would be a good start. It is written in an accessible manner. You can, as I did, compare the Old English to its modern English equivalent.
Best of all, it’s only a bit over 3,000 lines. The Odyssey and Paradise Lost both clock in at around 12,000 lines or so. Beowulf is a good one to dip your toes into if you want to see if ancient epic poems are your cup of tea.
dorkenstein 