is thought to have been written around the yearAD, give or take a century, And the author is the extremely famous, very popular and world renowned writer, . . Unknown. Got you there, didn't I LOL Probably not, . . if you're on Goodreads and studied American or English literature, you probably already knew this is one of the most famous works without an author,
It was first really published in thes, using the Old English version where many have translated it, but there are still some blurry parts of the story.
Essentially, a monster named Grendel hunts and kills the people of a town and many warriors have died fighting against it, Beowulf tackles the monster and its mother, and well, . . you're gonna have to read it to find out, Or if you can't get yourself there, watch the Star Trek or Simpsons episode which does a nice little rendition,
Here's the reasons why you should take a look at the story:
Many famous writers and editors have attempted to translate the story into more modern English, Tolkien is a famous example, Each reader has his/her own interpretation, So pick one whose style you like and go to that version,
. It's a translated book other than the famous Greek literature we read in high school, it's one of the earliest translated forms of literature, Makes it worth taking a gander,
. It's a really great story, Monster terrorizes people. Someone strong steps up to fight it, There is a victory of
sorts, Momma wants revenge. So how many books have you read that have just copied, . . I mean borrowed that entire plot
There is a lot of beauty in the prose and the verse, and when you hear the words describe the creatures, it's a bit like fantasy,
Here's why you may not like it:
It's long.
. It's hard to understand at some points,
. It'syears old and you just like modern stories,
My advice pick a passage or two, read forminutes and decide if it's something you want to read more of, But you should always give a chance to some part of our early heritage and culture, Right
About Me
For those new to me or my reviews, . . here's the scoop: I read A LOT, I write A LOT. And now I blog A LOT, First the book review goes on Goodreads, and then I send it on over to my WordPress blog at sitelink com, where you'll also find TV amp Film reviews, the revealing and introspectiveDaily Challenge and lots of blogging about places I've visited all over the world, And you can find all my social media profiles to get the details on the who/what/when/where and my pictures, Leave a comment and let me know what you think, Vote in the poll and ratings, Thanks for stopping by.
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polldaddy pollI listened to the Seamus Heaney recording on a dark stormy day, It was fantastic. bum bum IN A WORLD, . . bum bum FULL OF NASTY MONSTERS bum bum WHO EAT PEOPLE AND BREAK INTO CASTLES, . . bum bum THE BEASTLY GRENDEL LURKED LONG OVER THE MOORES, . . bum bum BUT NOW Cut to scene of monster ripping someone's face off with his teeth
silence, black screen.
Unknown warriors approaching
"Who are ye, then, ye armed men,
mailed folk, that yon mighty vessel
have urged thus over the ocean ways,
here o'er the waters"
bum bum.
. . ONE MAN bum bum ONE LARGE MAN bum bum OF NOBLE BIRTH AND LONG, LONG SWORD, . . bum bum IS THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN SAVE THEM,
"Hither have fared to thee farcome men
o'er the paths of ocean, people of Geatland
and the stateliest there by his sturdy band
is Beowulf named.
This boon they seek,
that they, my master, may with thee
have speech at will: nor spurn their prayer
to give them hearing, gracious Hrothgar!
In weeds of the warrior worthy they,
methinks, of our liking their leader most surely,
a hero that hither his henchmen has led.
"
cue symphony: BUMBUMBUUUUMMMMM! BUMBUMBUUUUMMMMM
Beowulf speaks:
"To Hrothgar I
in greatness of soul would succor bring,
so the WiseandBrave may worst his foes,
if ever the end of ills is fated,
of cruel contest, if cure shall follow,
and the boiling carewaves cooler grow
else ever afterward anguishdays
he shall suffer in sorrow while stands in place
high on its hill that house unpeered!"
Everyone looks around at each other, wondering what the fuck he's talking about
Exciting symphony, something along the lines of "O Fortuna.
" combat shown as Beowulf tosses Grendel down, gets Grendel in a headlock, pokes him in his eyes, Beowulf takes his shoe off and starts hitting Grendel on the top of his head with it,
Music stops. Shot of Beowulf on the shore, hand on his hilt,
Beowulf speaks:
"Tis time that I fare from you, Father Almighty
in grace and mercy guard you well,
safe in your seekings, Seaward I go,
'gainst hostile warriors hold my watch, "
BEOWULF. PG, Parents Strongly Cautioned. Contains Monsters Biting People's Faces Off, Graphic FarFetched Violence, and Shots of Beowulf's Bare Chest,
Beowulf is totally the precursor to Conan, and Rambo, He's mothafuckin' badass. And you know how, since the Rambo movies are so old, they come out in boxed sets now Think of this slim volume as a trilogy:
BEOWULF
BEOWULF II: MOMMY DEAREST
BEOWULF III: BEOWULF VERSUS A BIGASS DRAGON
While often trilogies get worse as they go along, this one actually improves.
And it's safe to say that a fourth sequel will never come out about Beowulf after he gets old and out of shape, . . although that might be what BEOWULF VERSUS A BIGASS DRAGON is,
If you like football, Stallone, Escape From New York, and can't get enough of Arnold Schwarzenegger, this is THE classic for you, As a college English major, I studied Beowulf without any great enthusiasm my real love was for the Romantic poets, And Chaucer, but that might have been partly because I thought it was hilarious that we were studying such bawdy material at BYU, Plus you can still puzzle out The Canterbury Tales in its original Middle English, with the help of a few handy annotations, while Beowulf in the original Old Englishother than the immortal at least in my mind line "Bēowulf is mīn nama"is beyond anyone but scholars, and it loses something in translation.
So I cheerfully forgot about Beowulf until I was puttering around in Barnes and Noble one day, and came across Seamus Heaney's recent translation, I read his foreword and was absolutely entranced by its brilliance, Heaney tosses off phrases like "the poem possesses a mythic potency" and talks about the "three archetypal sites of fear: the barricaded nighthouse, the infested underwater current, and the reptilehaunted rocks of a wilderness.
" He discusses how we are enveloped "in a society that is at once honourbound and bloodstained, presided over by the laws of the bloodfeud, " And he explains in detail how he went about creating a new translation of the poem and the difficulty of finding the right voice:
A simple sentence such as "We cut the corn today" took on immense dignity when one of my father's relatives spoke it.Anyway, all this is to explain why, after years of blissfully ignoring Beowulf, I felt compelled to buy this book and give it another try, Did it hold up to my hopes Well, not quite, I still appreciate Beowulf more than I love it, But I heard the solemn, deliberate voice that Heaney was seeking to use, and I thought he did a great job of translating it as well as possible into modern English while preserving the original feel and intent of the poem.
They had a kind of Native American solemnity of utterance, as if they were announcing verdicts rather than making small talk, And when I came to ask myself how I wanted Beowulf to sound in my version, I realized I wanted it to be speakable by one of those relatives.
I love the liberal use of alliteration and the compound words whaleroad sea ringgiver king that are found in the original version of the poem as well as this translation.
I felt the sidebyside nobility and brutality of these characters from it's surmisedth century Scandinavia, And I was getting some serious Tolkien vibes from the ending, which is not at all a bad thing,
In the end, it was a bit of a tough slog reading through the entire poem, but I'm glad I did it, I think I still love Heaney's foreword more than I love the actual Beowulf poem, I need to check out J, R. R. Tolkien's Beowulf translation one of these days, I was always quite intimidated by this book, I'm not sure why. Now I realize that my being intimidated by a book, especially by this one, was just ridiculous, What a fabulous, fabulous book! I just loved everything about it! The poetry, the story! Five big 's all the way! A DANISH KING, A BRAVE HERO, TWO MONSTERS AND A DRAGON IF THAT DOESN'T SPELL EPIC, I DON'T KNOW WHAT DOES!
Popsugar Reading Challenge
A book set in Scandinavia
Now.
I might be biased here I am Danish and most of this story takes place in Denmark but this was truly an epos! I am not usually into poems, but this one actually moved me.
", . . Beowulf and fear were strangers he stood ready to dive into battle, "
THE GOOD STUFF
Writing: It is not easy to make a battle sound almost beautiful, but the lyrical flow of the writing in this poem actually pulls it off.
More than once I found myself rereading a stanza simply because the writing touched something in me,
"In the darkness, the horrible shrieks of pain
And defeat, the tears torn out of Grendel's
Taut throat, hell's captive caught in the arms
Of him who of all the men on earth
Was the strongest.
"
The epicness: There are so many things about this that makes it truly epic, The battles, the bloodshed, the heraldry, the monsters! Beowulf is a hero of the same ilk as Theseus, Hercules and Ragnarok,
"So fame comes to the men who mean to win it and care about nothing else, "
The mystery: This actually lies outside the actual story of the poem and is more about the history of the poem.
Because there is so much mystery surrounding the origin of this story, The text was discovered in a monastery in theth century but was probably written aroundAD by an unknown author in England, who somehow had knowledge of Danish and Swedish Geat legends and who tried to recast them in a Christian narrative.
I might be the only one on this one, but this mystery really captivates me, Might just be because I am an historian, . .
sitelinkFOLLOW MY BLOG FOR MORE BOOK GOODNESS If I wrote a list of things I don't give a shit about, I'm pretty sure "some big fucking monster whose name sounds like a word for the area between my balls and my ass that attacks alcoholics and is eventually slain by some asshole, told entirely in some ancient form of English that I don't understand" would be near the top for the record, runon sentences would not.
Judge not.
This was one of the first books I was ever assigned to read in high school, and I'm pretty sure it was the catalyst to my never caring about school again.
God do I hate this fucking book, the way these men were so obsessed with their swords that they went as far as naming them will never not be funny to me What an epic should be.
. . a valiant epic that will relish the joys of poetry at the hands of the translator who has made it possible once more, I enjoyed reading it many times but a freefall into the chasm of poetry was even more interesting and enlightening, very interesting history, very boring story if I ever met Beowulf in real life I would punch him the moment he opened his mouth! "But generally the spear
is prompt to retaliate when a prince is killed,
no matter how admirable the bride may be.
"
I'm astounded by the complexity of this poem, It makes me wish my Germanic philology course lasted forever so we could analyse it word by word, slowly, meticulously, languidly, This is why I personally suggest reading it with the help of a critical guide if you haven't the faintest idea what the poem is about, when and in what cultural context it was written, about the debate about it being Christian or not, etc.
If you're willing to do some research by yourself, I promise you're in for a treat, This is a reread from my high school days, It was fun to reengage with this epic poem, This particular edition is bilingual with Old English on the left and modern English on the right, So technically that cuts the book length in half but does not take away from the story, The poem blends lots of elements of fictional, historical reference, and elements of legends, There are even Biblical allusions of Cain, making him a monster “pained by the sounds of joy, ” Beowulf, son Ecgtheow, goes to aid of Hrothgar the Danish king, The Danes are being tormented by a monster, Grendel, who stalks a great hall and kills many men, This epic poem includes the entire tale of Grendel, the monsters mother, and the fighting of the dragon, I was able to see how Tolkien used the sleeping dragon, underground layer, and cunning thief stealing from the dragons hoard of loot,
I enjoyed reading this overall, Sometimes I lost focus and found it rambling but some part kept me engaged, This is considered the most important Old English poem and thats probably why everyone has to read it in school, Thanks!
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