Beowulf (poem)
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Beowulf is the conventional title of an Anglo-Saxon epic poem.
Tolkien and Beowulf[edit]
J.R.R. Tolkien was a prominent Beowulf scholar; his Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics was a turning point in the modern study of the poem, moving the focus from its historical to its literary significance.[1] Tolkien also left two substantial unpublished manuscripts concerning Beowulf. The first, a more substantial version of the previously mentioned critical essay, was edited by Michael D.C. Drout and published as Beowulf and the Critics.[2] The second is a partial poetic and full prose translation of the epic, including commentary.[3] The latter was a minor media sensation on its 'discovery' in 2003 and was also to be prepared for publication by Drout, but as of 2010 this was not forthcoming.[4]
On 22 May 2014, HarperCollins published Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, taken from the unpublished manuscript kept at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.[5]
An excerpt from Beowulf, rendered by Tolkien in Valmaric script, was published with commentary in Parma Eldalamberon 14.[6] A similar excerpt from Beowulf, rendered by Tolkien in his Qenya Alphabet, was published with commentary in Parma Eldalamberon 20.[7]
Influence on the legendarium[edit]
Tolkien looked highly upon Beowulf, and it both indirectly and directly influenced his own imaginative work. The episode in The Hobbit where Bilbo steals a cup from Smaug's hoard, for example, is a conscious homage to a similar theft in Beowulf.[8]
See also[edit]
External Links[edit]
- Beowulf at Wikipedia
- Tolkien and Beowulf - Michael Kennedy details some of the similarities between the two.
References
- ↑ Heaney, Seamus (2000). Beowulf, "Introduction". New York: W.W. Norton. pp. ix–xxx.
- ↑ Michael D.C. Drout, Beowulf and the Critics.
- ↑ Beowulf: Translations by J. R. R. Tolkien. Updated 2003-01-05. Retrieved 2010-08-14.
- ↑ Michael D.C. Drout, Wormtalk and Slugspeak: Beowulf Basics. Updated 2007-10-10. Retrieved 2010-08-13.
- ↑ Rhona Beare, "A Mythology for England", in The Silmarillion: Thirty Years On (ed. Allan Turner)
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, "Early Qenya and The Valmaric Script", in Parma Eldalamberon XIV (edited by Carl F. Hostetter, Christopher Gilson, Arden R. Smith, Patrick H. Wynne, and Bill Welden), pp. 90, 120, 122
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Qenya Alphabet", in Parma Eldalamberon XX (edited by Arden R. Smith), pp. 67, 70
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien (eds.), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 25, (dated February 1938).
