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Tolkien and the Beowulf Saga

Posted by michael on from the everything-old-is-new-again dept.

jackalski sent in this story about a translation of the Beowulf epic by J.R.R. Tolkien being discovered and which is now set to be published next year. Tolkien found Beowulf inspirational.

1 of 302 comments (clear)

  1. +5 Troll by blamanj · · Score: 5, Informative

    Unfortunately Heaney's translation got involved with a fixup by the booker prize committee which put off a lot of people.

    Not many literature buffs here, I guess. The Booker Prize is given for new fiction, and so Heaney's Beowulf isn't even eligible.

    However, the two books did go head to head in 1999 for a somewhat less influential award, the Whitbread Prize. Both Heaney and Rowling won in their respective categories (poetry and children's), but the Whitbread judges go on to pick a "book of the year" from all the winners, and they did pick Beowulf as the book of the year.

    That aside, I really don't think you can make a case that Rowling writes better than Heaney.