Brad Mercer
8th November 2005, 01:01 PM (13:01)
How's that for "off the beaten path"?
Beowulf is one of those pieces of literature that everyone hears about in school, but no one actually reads. I occasionally like to read something like that just because there's frequently a good reason why people have talked about a piece of literature for centuries. Additionally, I just like to read something every now and then that isn't in any sense required or expected -- something that's not a current bestseller, either in the church or the larger society.
Beowulf is a 74-page Anglo-Saxon poem about a warrior, Beowulf, who kills a couple of monsters for a neighboring tribe, serves as king of his own tribe for 50 years, and then dies in the process of slaying a 50 foot long, fire-breathing dragon. It mentions trolls and elves. It's presumably written by a Christian monk about a pagan past whose heroes and virtues he still reveres, even while rejecting or minimizing their paganism.
Beowulf was written in Old English a thousand years ago or more. This version is a translation by a Nobel prize winning poet and Harvard University philologist, so it's actually readable, in more or less modern English, but still remains faithful to the feel and structure of the original. This "Norton Critical Edition" includes critical essays before and after the actual poem. I read the whole book through first, including all the essays, and then went back and re-read the poem itself.
Beowulf tells me something about my own history, about my people and heritage, how my early Christian ancestors thought, saw the world, what they valued, how they processed their pre-Christian past. C.S. Lewis, in an article entitled: "On the Reading of Old Books" wrote: "Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books." That idea makes Beowulf a good read.
Another selling point for this edition is that one of the critical essays following the poem is by J.R.R. Tolkien. His essay on Beowulf, written in the 1920's, gives the reader hints and insights into the perspective that produced "Lord of the Rings". He praises Beowulf as a poem and a story, while other critics before him had condemned it for not being good history. And he likes the dragon. He says good heroes are plentiful in old literature, but a good dragon is rare. In Beowulf, by the way, kings are often referred to as "the ring-giver". Lots of little things like that will bring "Lord of the Rings" to mind when reading Beowulf. It's essentially the raw material from which Tolkien's mind wandered into Middle Earth.
If you're looking for something to refresh your mind, to cleanse your palate of your usual intellectual diet, this edition of Beowulf will do it.
Brad Mercer
Beowulf is one of those pieces of literature that everyone hears about in school, but no one actually reads. I occasionally like to read something like that just because there's frequently a good reason why people have talked about a piece of literature for centuries. Additionally, I just like to read something every now and then that isn't in any sense required or expected -- something that's not a current bestseller, either in the church or the larger society.
Beowulf is a 74-page Anglo-Saxon poem about a warrior, Beowulf, who kills a couple of monsters for a neighboring tribe, serves as king of his own tribe for 50 years, and then dies in the process of slaying a 50 foot long, fire-breathing dragon. It mentions trolls and elves. It's presumably written by a Christian monk about a pagan past whose heroes and virtues he still reveres, even while rejecting or minimizing their paganism.
Beowulf was written in Old English a thousand years ago or more. This version is a translation by a Nobel prize winning poet and Harvard University philologist, so it's actually readable, in more or less modern English, but still remains faithful to the feel and structure of the original. This "Norton Critical Edition" includes critical essays before and after the actual poem. I read the whole book through first, including all the essays, and then went back and re-read the poem itself.
Beowulf tells me something about my own history, about my people and heritage, how my early Christian ancestors thought, saw the world, what they valued, how they processed their pre-Christian past. C.S. Lewis, in an article entitled: "On the Reading of Old Books" wrote: "Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books." That idea makes Beowulf a good read.
Another selling point for this edition is that one of the critical essays following the poem is by J.R.R. Tolkien. His essay on Beowulf, written in the 1920's, gives the reader hints and insights into the perspective that produced "Lord of the Rings". He praises Beowulf as a poem and a story, while other critics before him had condemned it for not being good history. And he likes the dragon. He says good heroes are plentiful in old literature, but a good dragon is rare. In Beowulf, by the way, kings are often referred to as "the ring-giver". Lots of little things like that will bring "Lord of the Rings" to mind when reading Beowulf. It's essentially the raw material from which Tolkien's mind wandered into Middle Earth.
If you're looking for something to refresh your mind, to cleanse your palate of your usual intellectual diet, this edition of Beowulf will do it.
Brad Mercer