Medieval History
J.R.R. Tolkien (trans.) and Christopher Tolkien (ed). Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, together with Sellic Spell. London: HarperCollins, 2014. 448pp.
Reviewed by Mark Atherton
Beowulf is "the major piece of Old English verse that has survived the wrecks of time ? still profitable ? to read in its own right, quite apart from its acquired value as a window into the past"; so the author puts it in this ?new? publication from the literary estate of J.R.R. Tolkien (Tolkien, Beowulf, 275). Many present-day medievalists would agree with Tolkien?s view that the poem?s artistic merit matches its historical import. As a "major piece of verse," Beowulf tells an epic tale focusing on two moments in the trajectory of its protagonist: the "young proud" ambitious hero who defeats the monster Grendel in the first part of the poem, the old king in the second, filled, as Tolkien puts it in the commentary to this translation, with "the bitter wisdom of experience" (312). As a historical "window," Beowulf provides an Anglo-Saxon view on the legendary past of northern Europe that would be otherwise unknown, and as a poem it deals with the big themes of the ?Northern? epic: loyalty and treachery, redress for wrong, providence, fate and fortitude. Tolkien?s version, now edited by his son Christopher, comes at a time when the reputation of the poem is growing, not to mention the fascination to be had from reading another work by the author of The Lord of the Rings?. READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE
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Medieval History
Atherton on Tolkien (trans.) & Tolkien (ed.), Beowulf
Reviewed by Mark Atherton
Beowulf is "the major piece of Old English verse that has survived the wrecks of time ? still profitable ? to read in its own right, quite apart from its acquired value as a window into the past"; so the author puts it in this ?new? publication from the literary estate of J.R.R. Tolkien (Tolkien, Beowulf, 275). Many present-day medievalists would agree with Tolkien?s view that the poem?s artistic merit matches its historical import. As a "major piece of verse," Beowulf tells an epic tale focusing on two moments in the trajectory of its protagonist: the "young proud" ambitious hero who defeats the monster Grendel in the first part of the poem, the old king in the second, filled, as Tolkien puts it in the commentary to this translation, with "the bitter wisdom of experience" (312). As a historical "window," Beowulf provides an Anglo-Saxon view on the legendary past of northern Europe that would be otherwise unknown, and as a poem it deals with the big themes of the ?Northern? epic: loyalty and treachery, redress for wrong, providence, fate and fortitude. Tolkien?s version, now edited by his son Christopher, comes at a time when the reputation of the poem is growing, not to mention the fascination to be had from reading another work by the author of The Lord of the Rings?. READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE
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