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Bring On the Monsters: Tolkien's Translation of Beowulf To Be Published
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "Tolkien was often criticized by his academic colleagues for wasting time on fiction, even though that fiction has probably done more to popularize medieval literature than the work of 100 scholars. Now John Garth reports that HarperCollins plans to publish Tolkien's long-awaited 1926 translation of the oldest surviving Old English epic poem about Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, who kills the monster Grendel with his bare hands and Grendel's mother with a sword of a giant that he found in her lair. Verlyn Flieger, identifies Beowulf as representing one of the two poles of Tolkien's imagination: the darker half, in which we all face eventual defeat – a complete contrast to the sudden joyous upturn of hope that he also expresses so superbly. 'In truth,' writes Garth, 'it is his ability to move between the two attitudes that really lends him emotional power as a writer.' Tolkien pushed the monsters to the forefront arguing that they 'represent the impermanence of human life, the mortal enemy that can strike at the heart of everything we hold dear, the force against which we need to muster all our strength – even if ultimately we may lose the fight.' Without the monsters, the peculiarly northern courage of Beowulf and his men is meaningless. Tolkien, veteran of the Somme, knew that it was not. 'It will be fascinating to see how [Tolkien] exercised his literary, historical and linguistic expertise on the poem,' concludes Garth adding that Tolkien was the arch-revivalist of literary medievalism, who made it seem so relevant to the modern world. 'I can't wait to see his version of the first English epic.'"
The man's peculiar obsession with Old Norse mythology rivaled anything you would have found in Renaissance-era studies of classical Greek and Roman thought.
Can I get a cluster of beowulf jokes?
After the commercial success of LoTR and the Hobbit trilogy, it's only a matter of time.
Oh wait.
In what world is Tolkien not considered News for Nerds?
early 20th century. If Tolkien hadn't written Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion less than a hundred people currently alive would know who he was. Tolkien is remembered for Middle-earth, not for his scholarship. This is a work of scholarship, not Middle-earth, so the fact that it is something Tolkien produced is completely irrelevant.
Had Tolkien not been a scholar, I seriously doubt his tales of Middle-Earth would have the depth, resonance, and staying power that they do have.
So Tolkien's academic work is extremely relevant to his works of fiction.
If you aren't a fan of Tolkien's writings, you can turn in your nerd card right now.
I kid, of course... but only just barely...
William George
Peter Jackson is looking to d-r-a-g this single poem out and turn it into a 6-movie snoring fest.
Part of it was his love of Germanic languages. Part of it was that the Germanic pagan folk and religious traditions were best preserved into Christian times by Norse chroniclers, whereas the West and East Germanic traditions were largely lost. To get at the English mythology he so wanted to see, the only real route was through the Scandinavians.
That being said, Beowulf is an Old English poem, even though it describes events in Denmark. I don't anyone knows if Beowulf has a history before the 7th century, so whether it was someone writing down an old tale known from the time before the Anglo-Saxon invasions of England, or a unique work all its own is unknown.
The Germanic peoples lived in an interesting complex of related cultures and languages in the early centuries AD, and while Germanic had already split into its major divisions; West Germanic (ancestor of English, Dutch and German), East German (Gothic, long extinct) and Northern (the Scandinavian languages), there was a considerable amount of commonality between these groups. Particularly in and around modern Denmark, the West and Northern Germanic peoples lived in close quarters, so it wouldn't be surprising if North Germanic tales made it into the Anglo-Saxon tradition.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I recently sat through The Desolation of Smaug and now I have no appetite whatsoever to watch another Peter Jackson movie. It all started so promising The Fellowship of the Ring, but now his movies have more shark-jumping than Tolkien.
You haven't heard Beowulf until you've heard it in the original Klingon!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The fact that the Lord of the Rings has appendices with back stories, histories, evolution of languages, and sorts of other little interesting tidbits quite clearly show Tolkien was not only an author but a scholar as well.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
This has been talked about for decades, but it has sat on the shelf for reasons I haven't been able to figure out.
I'd heard that it may literally have had to do with the handwriting: the man's handwriting was, shall we say, idiosyncratic, and it takes considerable effort to decipher. His son Christopher devoted a lifetime to it. John Rateliff, who did similar work for drafts of The Hobbit, consulted with a Tolkien graphologist in the process. (He was able to get a rough dating for one scrawl based on the details of the handwriting.) The fact that there even exists such a thing as a "Tolkien graphologist" is absurdly wonderfully.
Anybody know who edited this piece? Is it Christopher?
Regardless, I'm looking forward to this. "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" was one of the most influential pieces of literary scholarship of the 20th century. It completely changed the way we look at Anglo-Saxon storytelling, and put fantasy literature on an entirely different footing. It's a magnificent piece of work, but not having his own translation of Beowulf available was maddening.
The translation of a literary work can be purely scholarly or purely artistic, but usually it is a mix of both. Given Tolkien's mastery of both worlds, and the fact that his love of Beowulf went far beyond linguistic and historical study, it is pretty clear that his translation will be of broad literary interest, not just scholarly.
I'ts hard to read now. the pacing, the structuring it's all pretty much out of date.
And yes, I am a fan, I am literally in the fan club, had an 8 foot map of Middle Earth as a child and I wore a Frodo Lives! button.
I have spent hours explaining to people that there are Two types of Giant Eagles and shows exactly why they couldn't fly the ring bearer any closer to mordor.
Clearly, I ahave a passion for his works.
I recently read them to my children.. well, 5-7 years ago, and they where pretty painful in a lot of ways
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
One needn't stretch too far, to view Beowulf as the literary manifestation of an older, orally transmitted tradition. The "Geats" are derived etymologically from the "Goths", the famous early Germanic people known to the latest classical antiquarians:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geats
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goths
Funny, to classify this as "Northern". The eventual disposition of the Germanic people were in Europe's outer northwest regions, but the culturally defining aspect of the people were present, even as they were occupants of the Balkan peninsula, and swathes of steppe, far to the east.
The Indo-Iranic hero tradition is similar in ethos and story development to the Teutonic myths. Small reason for surprise, really - when one considers the near common origin of Caucasus and steppe tribes, some which eventually invaded as Aryans in Asia, others who pushed westward as proto-Germanic migration and invasion.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Tolkien's major contribution to the study of Beowulf was to assert that it was more than just a bit of antiquarian poetry to be mined for fragments of linguistic and historical, but rather a work of art to be appreciated as poetry – monsters, dragons and all. That he also crafted legends to be enjoyed for their own sake (rather than as quasi-historical pastiche a la William Morris) is no accident. His translation of Beowulf (and the 'Monsters and Critics' material that will be published in that volume) is an exemplar of his thesis on story-telling and legend.
This is a work of scholarship, not Middle-earth, so the fact that it is something Tolkien produced is completely irrelevant.
False. When translating between languages, the personality and preferences of the translator are extremely relevant. As well, his actual skill at writing and size of vocabulary as well as his familiarity with the period (the scholarly part) determine the aptness of the translation: whether it actually manages to capture the feel of the original.
Tolkien was an engaging author, therefore it's interesting (to some of us) to see what he did with the work.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
and they can make a movie out of it.
Robert Zemeckis already did, over half a decade ago.
And yes, I am a fan, I am literally in the fan club, had an 8 foot map of Middle Earth as a child and I wore a Frodo Lives! button.
Could it also be that you are 20 years older than you were when you first read them? What enthralls us in middle school isn't necessarily what will entertain us when we get older. People, unlike books, change as they get older, and sometimes don't even notice themselves doing so...
Monstar L
Tolkien's edition of Gawain and the Green Knight is really good. A layperson can easily learn how to pronounce the Middle English of the text, which being a bit "Northern" is somewhat "older" and different than that of Chaucer. There's also a useful glossary. It's really a great book. If you like Tolkien, and you haven't read it, you should probably take a look at it. On the other hand, the claims above about Tolkien being the person who brought the Medieval into the Modern must come from a very narrow perspective. The Medieval was always there. Think of the work of the Pre-Raphaelites, or of Walter Scott. And Tolkien was far from the only fantasist whose work drew heavily on the Medieval. In fact, and I know this is heretical, but there are works out there that are in many ways better than his. But his world is amazing, his scholarship quite useful, and, in my opinion, he was on the right side of the issue with C.S. Lewis. (As a final note, he made an interesting contribution to an interesting little mystery, the "Nodens" ring and inscription. Also fun to check out.) A final, final note: Seamus Heany's version of Beowulf is a pretty good read too.