Beowulf Page 5

BEOWULF

(Page Five)

Beowulf, my friend,
your fame has gone far and wide,
you are known everywhere.

Beowulf, lines 1703-5, tr. Seamus Heaney

CONCLUSION

When the above words were first written down, sometime between the eighth and eleventh centuries, the writer had no idea how prophetic they would be. Even though Anglo-Saxon is today an archaic language, millions of people throughout the world are familiar with this great poem largely because of the many translations -- in scores of languages -- that have been made through the past few centuries.

In addition to translations, there have been many adaptations and retellings of the story in various forms. Most of them deal mainly with the first part of the poem, Beowulf's encounter with Grendel. These are two of the best known:

Michael Crichton's novel, Eaters of the Dead, retells the Beowulf story from the viewpoint of an Arab eyewitness who travels to the Norse Lands. The film version is The Thirteenth Warrior (1999).

John Gardner's novel, Grendel, first published in 1971, is a classic retelling of the story from the viewpoint of the monster, Grendel (with sympathy for what he experiences). A recent audiotape version is available.

Worth at least a mention is a movie version of Beowulf (with the same title), made in 1999 with a futuristic, science-fiction setting and available in video stores. It's not a good movie but it's an interesting curiosity.

For further study of Beowulf in translation, Seamus Heaney's reading, on audiotape, of his own translation of Beowulf is highly recommended. Heaney, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995, is not only a great poet in his own right but also a great reader of poetry. The tapes are available from HighBridge Company, telephone 1-800-667-8433.

If you're interested in reading Beowulf in Old English, the Old English text in hypertext format, along with an interlinear translation, can be accessed at the following sites. (The translation is, however, very old and outdated.)

The Old English text without accompanying translation can be found at this site:

And finally, for further study of Beowulf in all its aspects, this website contains an extensive bibliography: