Tolkien and the Beowulf Saga 316
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.
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Tolkien and the Beowulf Saga
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"When the going gets tough, the tough get empirical." -- Jon Carroll
sir gawain (Score:5, Interesting)
I dont know of any online shops that carry the book, but the ISBN number is 0-345-27760-0 if you want to look for it or special order.
This will be a hard read... (Score:5, Interesting)
I really like Tolkien, but I had to really push myself to get through the Silmarillion... Somehow a line by line explanation strikes me as being much less than 'exciting'!
Elves, Orcs, and Ents in Beowulf? (Score:3, Interesting)
Speaking of Grendel, there's a great novel by the same name written by John Gardner.
Back on topic, Gardner wrote an interesting article [nytimes.com] on Tolkien and his world.
Re:Movie Studios Cook this up? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why do that when there are plenty of Tolkien authored works yet to be filmed - the Hobbit hasn't been done, at least not on the scale of LotR, some stories from the Silmarillion could be filmed if you were desperate, and there are umpteen "Unfinished Tales".
It's of more interest as an example of his inspiration, and it'd be interesting to see Tolkien's take on Beowulf. It's not going to be a massive seller to the general public, who probably have enough trouble getting through LotR, but for those who are interested it'll definitely be worth a look.
Don't assume that everything is marketing. While it's often the case, believing it of everything will make you as shallow as the advertisers who push that idea.
Cashing in... (Score:3, Interesting)
I am looking forward to reading this though. Besides the handwriting, is the fingerprint the only proof that this was written by Tolkien? Does his son know about this?
Re:This will be a hard read... (Score:3, Interesting)
It gets better the more times you read it. I've read The Silmarillion 4 times in the past year alone (same for The Hobbit and LOTR.) Think of The Hobbit as being written by Bilbo, LOTR by Frodo and Sam, and The Silmarillion transcribed by Bilbo from much older sources. The difference in style makes sense then.
Tolkien/Middle English (Score:4, Interesting)
I am interested to see how his Beowulf will compare with Seamus Heaney's truly masterful work, published a couple of years ago. However, given that Heaney is a poet, and Tolkien was a philologist, I sha'n't be surprised if they differ widely...
I'll bet Chrispher Tolkien is beside himself ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This will be a hard read... (Score:2, Interesting)
Examination of folklore and legends tells us something about our society and our selves. The use of SF and fantasy to explore our real world and history rather than more fantasy would be great way to improve the nerd image among the general population.
You'll get more chicks talking about Gardner's Grendel than you will bringing up Tolkien.(This is both a joke and an true example.)
Re:Tolkien/Middle English (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately Heaney's translation got involved with a fixup by the booker prize committee which put off a lot of people.
The book of the year came down to a choice between Heaney's Beowulf and Harry Potter. The ossified farts of the Booker committee gave the Prize to Heaney saying 'Children's books come and go, Beowulf is forever'.
The idiocy of this remark amazed me. While I have no doubt that students will be having Gilgamesh and Beowulf rammed down their craw in a thousand years time I very much doubt the Heaney translation will be much remembered (except perhaps by a snarky comment in a preface to Potter!). On the other hand we can be pretty certain that Alice in Wonderland and probably even Lord of the Rings will still be arround. And if any book published that year is still in print in 100 years time I'll bet Harry potter is as well.
What it comes down to is the same set of sniffy attitudes that denigrated Tolkein's work. The other Oxford Dons were not pleased when an obscure professor of philology made the publishing sensation of the decade rather than any of the established names they had been betting on. They certainly did not like the idea that tales of elves etc. was more popular than their 'high litterature'.
Beowulf is famous for one reason alone, it is the earliest that survived. Now that in itself is no mean feat since a tale that survives as an oral tradition has to be worth telling. But when it comes down to it Homer, Gilgamesh and Beowulf are more important for the way in which they have affected our culture than in themselves. For that reason alone I would rate Tolkein's translation higher since at the end of the day Tolkein did something interesting with Beowulf. Heaney merely translated it.
Besides Heaney is exactly the type of high litterature type that the Oxford Dons think we should like instead of Tolkein, if only we understood what high art is.
Seamus Heaney (Score:3, Interesting)
And if you get a chance to hear someone who can read the original, go to it. Just gorgeous stuff even if it's pretty tough to follow.
Discovered, not quite. (Score:1, Interesting)
Drout's edition of which has just been published, with the fact that he is now working on an edition of Tolkien's Modern English
(alliterative and prose) translations of _Beowulf_. The article gets a number of other things wrong too. Not to diminish Michael Drout's
moment of personal discovery or his achievement in his new book, but the existence of "Beowulf and
the Critics" was known before he saw it: it was listed long ago in a public catalogue of the Tolkien papers at the Bodleian. It just wasn't
published. As for Tolkien's _Beowulf_ translation, this has been even better known: cited three times, for example, in the 1993 Tolkien _Descriptive Bibliography_ -- and brief portions of it have been published, e.g. in Tolkien's "Prefatory Remarks on Prose Translation
of 'Beowulf'", originally his preface to the 1940 edition of _Beowulf_ translated by John R. Clark Hall, and in Hammond and Scull, _J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist & Illustrator_ alongside two drawings by Tolkien of Grendel's Mere.
a word (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't. Listen to it instead. It was a myth, part of an oral tradition. You really don't get the same thing out of reading it.
There's a recording available of Seamus Heaney reading his translation of it here. [amazon.com]
Triv
Re:it's still beowulf... (Score:5, Interesting)
Tim
Trying not to be a Troll (Score:2, Interesting)
This sounds like a Hollywood insider special edition timming event
Re:sir gawain (Score:4, Interesting)
BTW to nitpick Modern English-- The Pearl is the poem-- Perl is the programing language (which I also read
I must have this Beowulf translation!
There are other translations... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.lone-star.net/literature/beowulf/ [lone-star.net]
Re:Brin Takes Grendel's Side (Score:1, Interesting)
Rob
Look at the Kalevala more than Beowulf (Score:2, Interesting)
People forget that Tolkien was one of the world's great authorities on all forms of Northen European Lang. and Lit. He had a lot more than Beowulf to draw on. Many linguists have commented on how much Tolkien leaned on Finnish when he created Elvish.
Re:This will be a hard read... (Score:3, Interesting)
A few years later, I read (the whole series) again and could actually follow everything. Many of the events in the LOTR make far more sense when you have the background knowledge that the Silmarillion gives you.
Nowadays, I would venture to say that it would make a remarkable film, but not one that Hollywood would (or could) ever produce.
Clear Influence (Score:3, Interesting)
When reading LOTR I always felt that Tolken used heroic and Arthurian styleing and language to wonderful effect. The first time I read LOTR when I was younger I felt that he must have just gotten confused near the end of his work when he extensively used heroic language, now re-reading it with a bit deeper appreciation of literary technique I am always impressed with the appropriateness of Tolken's use of heroic and Arthurian language. It's plain that Tolken used his intense immersion in the language of Heroic and Arthurian epics (imagine how intense the immersion must have been to learn the original language and then create a translation) to good effect in his writing.
Having read Beowulf, Sir Gwain and the Green Knight, and LOTR all within the last 6 months a few distinct stylistic parallels have stood out to me. The romance between Eowyn and Aragorn is scented with the aura of Arthurian legends. They were always big on a sort of strange courtly love that at times bordered on infidelity, but was apparently socially acceptable. (Think Lancelot and Gwenevire). When looked at in the context of Arthurian legends the story of Eowyn and Aragorn makes a wonderful kind of sense, but without that context it can be a bit confusing. Likely that is why the movie chose to portray that story in a manner which isn't quite faithful to the literary effect of the book.
The other strong prominent Aurtherian influence in LOTR seems to be the importance of 'doing the right thing'. While heroic epics like Beowulf, (and the Odyssey and others for that matter) are centered completely around the hero and his conception of right and wrong, Arthurian epics are based on a definite moral code, and their conflicts often rest on the 'the code' conflicting with the heroes personal desires. Look at the conflict between destroying the ring (the absolute good) and various characters' desires to use the ring to fulfill personal desires.
The most Heroic "Beowulf'ian" part of LOTR is its' "improbability." In a heroic epic it's much more important for the story to come to its rightful conclusion than to have the taste of realism. Therefore it's perfectly acceptable, (and probably necessary) for Beowulf or Aragorn to perform unbelievable feats of strength, valor, or leadership. If the reader can get over their sense of the impossible, the feat's unbelievable'ness and the language's brief matter of fact descriptions will just push the reader further into the fantasy world and develop their feelings about the hero.
Tragically post reads too much like an essay I'd write for an English class, but I was just impressed with the distinctness of the parallels when I read the article. The moral is that Tolken's study of Beowulf and Sir Gwain and the Green Knight probably had a bit to do with the way that LOTR turned out.
Grumble, mutter (Score:2, Interesting)
You see, this is why I'm so pissed off with the psuedo-Games Workshop fantasy armour and weapons in the film versions. LotR is clearly - explicitely, even - based on the Saxon period, which means elbow-and-mid-thigh length mail byrnies and spatulate broadswords with short crossguards and single hand grips, not proto-lorica segmentata and hand-and-a-half monstrosities.
Er, or maybe I need to get laid more.
Re:This will be a hard read... (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe this is because I'm a composer, but I always thought the Silmarillion needed to be a cycle of operas rather than a movie. I know at least that Beren and Luthien is a story Wagner would have loved to score if he could have read it.