Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, together with Sellic Spell by Unknown

Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, together with Sellic Spell Reviews

• 
  Sean Barrs

  The story of Beowulf is a timeless tale full of blood, glory and passion. It’s a fantastic epic and I love reading it. The Seamus Heaney translation is right on the mark.
  
  Tolkien’s version, however, is prose. And I find this a little odd because part of the beauty of an epic is the poetry in which it’s told through. Tolkien’s certainly has a strong rhythm, and it flows forward eloquently, but it’s not divided into lines and the words and sentences merge into paragraphs rather than stanzas.
  
  For me, Beowulf needs to be a song, an ode to a hero and his legendry life, to be sung around mead halls with instruments echoing long into the night. I need to feel the grandness of the story. Prose just doesn’t do it. So right from the start this felt a little different. The story is here, of course, and Tolkien was ever faithful to it but the way in which he has told it is uncomfortable and unbefitting the nature of it.
  
  Towards the end of the book, there are certain sections that Tolkien has translated into poetry, but these are only single scenes and are not told with the rest of the work. The Lay of Beowulf, a short poem depicting the battle between Beowulf and Grendel, is perhaps the best part of the book, but it’s told as an aside and added right at the end behind the extensive commentaries. It’s unimportant to the prose work, despite it being the best piece of writing in here.
  
  Christopher Tolkien offers an explanation for the work: Tolkien translated this when he was only thirty-four years old; he had another twenty years of study ahead of him, so in a way it is a little juvenile when considered against the wealth of knowledge the author would one day gather through his professorship. Christopher believes his father meant to come back to this work one day, to finish it and make it better like he intended to do with so many of his works that were published long after his death.
  
  So this was good, in its own right, I just wanted it to be a little more poetical to capture the grandness of the story.
  
  
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• 
  William Gwynne

  No surprise that this is an awesome prose translation by Tolkien of the epic Old English myth that is Beowulf. This is a story that despite being so old, has resonates through the ages, commenting on the ideas of tragedy and heroism, belonging, duty, glory, and so much more. Some of these themes reflect the values of the period that have now been left behind in a modern context, but there is still so much that is thought provoking and wonderfully engaging, even today.
  
  Check it out!
• 
  Richard

  This book contains Tolkien's scholarship, comments and literary output inspired by Beowulf, one of the oldest and longest surviving poems in Old English. Many readers know and venerate him as the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (LOTR). But this is a timely reminder of the academic side of his life.
  
  In his prose translation, Tolkien strives to reflect something of the rhythm, cadence and beauty of the original. The comments on the technical aspects of the text, taken from lectures delivered over the years at Oxford, show us several things. First, he knew the epic poem and the Old English language very well indeed. Second, he had thought long and hard about it. And third, he was not afraid to criticize the "received text" where he thought it corrupt, providing his own suggestions as to the best possible rendering.
  
  In fact, Tolkien is such a virtuoso that he retro-translates a prose rendering of his own back into Old English. This is not arrogance; it is Tolkien flexing his academic muscles.
  
  One of the most interesting things about this is that it provides fascinating glimpses of where Tolkien derived some of the material for his later works. Hrothgar, the gift-giving, feast-loving lord of Heorot, becomes Theoden, the lord of the Golden Hall at Edoras. Unferth, the devious courtier becomes Grima Wormtongue. The thief stealing the two-handled cup from the hoard of the sleeping dragon becomes Bilbo's first success as a hired burglar. These are just a few examples. But more important is the spirit of the era of Beowulf. It was a time when fearlessness, prowess in battle, generosity, feasting, and storytelling were highly prized. And Tolkien managed to infuse much of this into his own Middle Earth.
• 
  Terry

  4.5 stars
  
  I'm already an admirer of the poem Beowulf (and Old English literature in general) and am also a die-hard Tolkien fan so the fact that I loved this book isn’t perhaps a surprise. I certainly expected to like it when I started, but wasn’t prepared for the fact that it would reveal to me a side of Tolkien of which I was always generally aware, but never gave enough thought to. I refer, of course, to his position as a scholar, and specifically one of Old English language and literature. I of course knew that this was his ‘official’ job, but as with many admirers of the Professor, I think I generally took for granted that his ‘real’ life and work was that which produced the Lord of the Rings and the larger mythology of Middle-earth, letting any consideration of his ‘official’ scholarship go by the wayside (especially in light of the fact that Tolkien did not exactly publish a voluminous amount of scholarly work in his lifetime). As I’ve come to believe through following the Mythgard Academy lectures on the History of Middle-earth series, however, it seems more and more obvious that not only did Tolkien’s professional work as a scholar deeply inform his literary endeavours, but in many ways his fictional works can be seen to be the true publications that bore the fruits of his professional research and deep thinking. That being said this glimpse into the ‘purely’ academic side of Tolkien’s life was an illuminating one.
  
  In this book we see Tolkien in his academic element, adroitly tackling the seminal surviving work of Old English literature, the heroic-elegiac poem Beowulf. Tolkien had already made waves in Beowulf scholarship with his groundbreaking essay 'The Monsters and the Critics' in which he both argued for the value of the legendary aspects of the poem and defended the craftsmanship of the poet, both views that were not generally held in esteem by the mainstream scholarship of the day. Now we finally have Tolkien's own version of the great poem along with copious commentary and notes regarding the various historical, linguistic, and literary complexities of the work. In addition in this volume is 'Sellic Spell' (or ‘Wonder Tale’ as it could be translated into modern English) Tolkien's attempt to re-create a version of the folk tale that might have lain behind the legendary elements of the poem.
  
  This book shows in no uncertain terms Tolkien's mastery of his subject and absolute assurance with his materials. While reading one never feels that he hasn't thought long and deeply on the text and the culture that produced it so his conclusions certainly have the ring of conviction and authority (even if one may disagree with them from time to time). Tolkien argues that Beowulf provides us with a unique view of the point of contact between two disparate cultures: the pagan world that was passing away and the Christian one which was becoming predominant. It is also something of a merging between two different genres of literature: the melding of a fairy or folk tale about a hero of legend overcoming monsters and cleansing the land (both his own and a foreign one) with the more historical tales and references of the rise and fall of two great Germanic houses: the Danes and the Geats (with many others making appearances in the background).
  
  Up until the point when Tolkien wrote ‘The Monsters and the Critics’ the reigning consensus was very much that the very existence of the mythical or folk tale elements of Beowulf were ‘problematic’ and took away from the ‘valid’ content of the poem, namely the references to people and events that may have had historical veracity during a time for which we have few, or no, other literary references. Tolkien turns this received criticism of Beowulf on its head when he says: "[the poet told the story well] At any rate in the first part. The second part perhaps less so: in any case it is too much interrupted by the weight of history outside the immediate event." (pg. 271) This is perhaps Tolkien overstating his case in the face of the received wisdom of the day, as it does not ultimately appear that he felt the historical content was ultimately detrimental to the legendary aspects of the poem; Tolkien instead seems to see the melding of the fairy (or folk tale) elements with history as an integral aspect of the poem and eventually argues that they need not be seen as being in contention, but rather work together to successfully build the whole edifice. In essence the Beowulf poet adds a layer of depth and reality to his poem by incorporating the many references and allusions to both other peoples and political events from history with the legends and folktales that live at the centre of his story. This structure allowed him to embody his work with those 'only glimpsed but unattainable vistas' in the distance that Tolkien himself was to use so effectively to add depth and reality to his own sub-creation of Middle-earth. It is not surprising that one can see Beowulf as one of the fundamental models which Tolkien used in building his own literary creation, though this debt would appear to lie not only in the obvious parallels to its legendary and cultural content, but even in the literary and thematic structure of the poem itself.
  
  Even though this is an academic work I would definitely say that it is a far cry from being a dry or tedious one. It’s certainly not ‘light’ reading and one probably ought to have at least some interest in both the content and structure of Beowulf when coming to this text. There are, for example, many in-depth discussions of word use and meaning (in addition to references to long-dead cultures and traditions) to be expected from a professional philologist, but I nearly always found these discussions engaging and quite often amusing. Indeed, seeing Tolkien's sometimes acerbic, though lightly veiled, jabs at the critics and theories of his day (many of them part of the received wisdom of the field) is great fun and gave me a greater appreciation for his extensive learning, thoughtfulness, and wit. He was certainly not afraid to state his opinion clearly and in no uncertain terms against any and all comers. Tolkien's perfectionism and difficulty in getting things ready for final publication aside I wonder whether this may not speak to why this was never published in his lifetime, and why his son even waited many decades after his father's death to consider publishing it at all.
  
  This is definitely a great read that is a must for anyone who wants an erudite and educational look at the poem Beowulf, as well as one that provides an excellent first-hand glimpse at Tolkien the scholar working in his element.
• 
  L

  
  STRENGTH IS LIFE
  For the strong have the right to rule
  
  HONOUR IS LIFE
  For with no honour one may as well be dead
  
  LOYALTY IS LIFE
  For without one’s clan one has no purpose
  
  DEATH IS LIFE
  One should die as they have lived
  
  A hero is someone who steps up when everyone else backs down..
  
  
  JRR Tolkien’s distinctive, idiosyncratic translation of the epic, Anglo-Saxon poem shows a simplistic clarity of vision.
  You can feel everything as though subconsciously you’re a part of the past. [I.e. standing alongside Beowulf whilst his men attentively listen to the taunts of Unferth!]
  
  Sombre, poignantly tragic, unnervingly sinister and curiously comprehensive this exquisite tale is steeped in history that harkens back to bygone ages – beyond memory of song yet not of imagination.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  the three battles; Grendel, Grendel’s mother and the Dragon are so acutely captured within lyrical prose,
  *[for instance ‘Hrothgar's sermon’ which conveys caution regarding one’s pride]
  you can almost hear the dulcet tones of the tale carried upon the breeze of your thoughts…
  Set in Scandinavia, Beowulf’s remarkable deeds of valor and ethical feats are relived with considerate authenticity. This particular translation also includes Tolkien's own retelling of the story of Beowulf in his tale, Sellic Spell.
  
  
  The most prevalent theme within Beowulf is the importance of the heroic code, which is exemplified through Christian themes and humanistic ideology. It’s the core values of the main protagonist, as he matures from a gallant warrior into a wise leader that truly touches you with candid truism – for, the text is relevant and relatable today as it would have been when written.
  
  
  The truth is that Heroes are ordinary folk who make themselves extraordinary.
  
  
  Quote {lines 2666-68} -
  
  Your deeds are famous, so stay resolute, my Lord, defend your life now with the whole of your strength.
  I shall stand by you
  
  
  .. After all that is said and done, the one Question that remains is not who isn’t going to let you but rather who is going to stop you?!
  
• 
  Keith Davis

  There is a famous quote about poetry translations that says if a translation is faithful then it is not beautiful and if it is beautiful then it is not faithful. Tolkien's translation of Beowulf is extremely faithful.
  
  Tolkien was a scholar of Old English and wrote a paper titled "Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics" which is considered one of the most significant works in Beowulf scholarship. He was of course also the grandfather of all modern Fantasy fiction. These two factors taken together make his translation of Beowulf all the more disappointing.
  
  The translation was completed in 1926, decades before his famous Fantasy works, and he did not attempt to publish it during his lifetime. The work is a very literal translation that is sometimes an awkward read. Of much more interest is the 200 pages of commentary Tolkien provides, explaining in great detail his translation process and word choices.
  
  For an example, look at the following passage from Tolkien's translation, starting with line 110.
  "Thereafter not far to seek was the man who elsewhere more remote sought him his couch and a bed among the lesser chambers, since now was manifested and declared thus truly to him with token plain the hatred of that hall-keeper; thereafter he who escaped the foe kept him more distant and more safe."
  The meaning is there, that the survivors of Grendel's first attack sought safer places to sleep than the hall of Hrothgar, but the phrasing is so strange it requires multiple readings to understand.
  
  Here is the same passage from Seamus Heaney's translation:
  "It was easy then to meet with a man shifting himself to a safer distance to bed in the bothies, for who could be blind to the evidence of his eyes, the obviousness of that hall-watcher's hate? Whoever escaped kept a weather-eye open and moved away."
  
  Finally from Burton Raffel's translation:
  "Then each warrior tried to escape him, searching for rest in different beds, as far from Herot as they could find, seeing how Grendel hunted when they slept. Distance was safety; the only survivors were those who fled him. Hate had triumphed."
  
  Tolkien gives up a near word for word translation, but the resulting structure sounds very strange to modern readers. Raffel coveys the meaning of the passage, but makes no attempt to retain the wording or original structure of the poem. Heaney strikes a fine balance between the two extremes, keeper closer to the wording of the Beowulf poet but conveying it in a clearer manner than Tolkien.
  
  To return to Yevtushenko's quote about translation, Tolkien is faithful but not beautiful while Raffel is beautiful but not faithful. If you want to read an interesting commentary on translating Old English into modern English I would recommend Tolkien's book. If you just want to enjoy reading Beowulf I would recommend Seamus Heaney's translation.
  
• 
  Nicky

  I'm full of wonder right now. Not so much at the translation of Beowulf -- Tolkien was well-versed in the language and knew what he was doing, and the tone is often reminiscent of The Lord of the Rings, which emphasises his attempts to weave his own stories with the old stories of England -- but at all the commentary published together here. Pretty much every issue I considered in my undergraduate class/es on Beowulf is touched on here -- the pagan aspects, the episodes, potential interpolations, mythic and historic origins -- and dealt with in a confident, convincing way. Tolkien's close reading of the text is exemplary. I don't feel like I have the knowledge to criticise his work, but I do know that it's incredibly worth reading.
  
  As with most of the other posthumously published work by Tolkien, though, this isn't really something for the layman. It's not exactly technical, but in delves into the minutiae so much. For a translation of the poem for an interested but not greatly knowledgable layman, I'd still recommend Seamus Heaney's translation as lively, well-considered and interesting. For commentary on the poem, general introductions are still enough. But for anyone who is more deeply interested in Beowulf, then this is an amazing resource. His treatment of the plot of the poem as a short story, 'Sellic Spell', doesn't entirely convince me as a precursor story to Beowulf (it rings very strongly of fairytales, to me, and not so much to a sort of mythic background) but is interesting nonetheless.
  
  In terms of fans of Tolkien's fiction as well as or instead of his academic work, there are gems here for us too. His translation of Beowulf really emphasises the Beowulfian elements in The Hobbit, and the way he phrases things, though slightly more archaic, is definitely familiar. His commentary mentions words you might recognise from his novels -- maþm, OE 'gift', for example, as long as you remember that þ = th...
  
  All in all, this may be because of my personal interests and the fact that I have done some academic work on Tolkien, but I think this is generally more valuable than most of the other work brought out posthumously by Christopher Tolkien, and I found CT's editing most logical and less of a barrier here than ever since The Silmarillion. I got very excited about it, and while I got an ebook to have it right away, I will shortly obtain a hardcover for my collection, and count it worth it.
• 
  Rossdavidh

  I read "Beowulf" as a child, or perhaps in my early teens, when I found it while staying at my grandparents' house during the summer. I retained some dim memories of the story, mixed up a bit with parts of "Grendel" by John Gardner which I read in high school, but not enough for me to really compare Tolkien's translation to the Burton Raffell version I read, uh, gosh, 35-40 years ago. I can say, however, that reading Tolkien's translation (with notes) is a lot like taking a course in a topic you only kind of like, from a teacher who's so excited about it that their excitement rubs off on you and you start to get excited about it as well.
  
  Less than a quarter of the book is actually JRRT's translation of "Beowulf", the oldest still existing work in the English language (albeit a version of English that is about as foreign to our speech as French or German). There is also a preface where Christopher Tolkien explains why it took this long for him to get around to sharing his father's translation with us; we also get to learn that at age eight his father sang for him a shortened poem of Beowulf that he had written. My daughter doesn't get a lot of that sort of thing from me.
  
  The bulk of the book is Tolkien's examination of the parts of the original text where there is some question as to what exactly is being said. Some words are found nowhere else, some were probably originally proper nouns that the scribe miscopied because they didn't know the reference, and some appear to be Christian updating to try to allow the pagan story of Beowulf to get approval from (or at least avoid banning by) the church of the time.
  
  I also learned for the first time that Beowulf appears (to those who know enough about such things to make an educated guess) to be a fusion of historically based legend with folk tales. JRRT made a reconstruction of the folk tale which Beowulf might have come from, and titled it "Sellic Spell". There were also a lot of other tales of nobles behaving badly towards one another (comparable in many ways to the tales of Camelot) that Beowulf was more or less stuck into, and Tolkien's notes help us to separate and identify these many strands which the original poet wove together (as well as anyone can do it now, with all of the source material gone).
  
  One thing it brought home to me was how the modern appetite for fan fiction and other derivative art forms, is really just a reemergence of an older way of storytelling. The 20th century style, where each author creates their own separate fictional universe, cut off from the others of the time, is a creation of copyright law more than anything. Older story cycles, like Camelot or Arabian Nights or the Ring Cycle that Wagner drew on, were constantly bringing in stories (historical or mythical in their origin), and mashing them together.
  
  Unfortunately for us, Beowulf is nearly all that remains of the many such tales of Old English, and most of what it references (that would have been well known to the originally intended audience) is a mystery to us. Not quite as much of a mystery, though, once you have an expert guide you through it, so that at least all which is known or guessed at, is available to you. There are times, reading this book, when you can almost imagine yourself in the Old English hall, listening to the skald's voice by firelight.
• 
  Althea Ann

  It's strange that Tolkien is credited with kickstarting modern scholarship on 'Beowulf,' yet, until now, his translation was unpublished.
  I've read other translations before, but I don't recall which ones specifically. I followed this reading up directly with the Heaney translation, which is apparently the standard in today's college classes. (It wasn't yet published either, last time I read 'Beowulf.') The Tolkien direct translation is more 'difficult,' but both (I cannot verify, but I got the feeling) more accurate and more lovely to the ear, with evocative and musical language. Tolkien's language and imagery is both vivid and elevated; and gives the reader the feeling of a glimpse into the past.
  
  Reading the accompanying commentary (together with notes from Christopher Tolkien) is great because there's a lot of discussion of what the figures of speech mean and what words not only mean but what their implications are, considering the society using them. (Which kind of rubs it in that, "no, you really don't understand the original like Tolkien does, and very likely no one alive does.")
  The 'commentary' is written rather informally, and indeed I could almost imagine myself in a classroom at Oxford,listening to Tolkien lecture. The book, as a whole is *almost* as good as taking a full-semester college seminar on the poem.
  
  In addition to the translation, notes and commentary, this volume also includes two versions of Tolkien telling the story of Beowulf in the style of a folk tale; and two versions of it written as a ballad - which, IMHO, HAS to be recorded by some excellent bands very shortly! Seriously, one of the best pieces of poetry I've ever read. Gorgeous language; you can literally hear the music as you read.
• 
  Joseph Fountain

  The Geat Warrior (not a typo, not Great Warrior, but Geat Warrior), Beowulf does battle with the Demon Grendel, Grendel's mother, and a dragon.
  
  Even in translation, this is still a bit challenging to read in spots. Still, it is an exciting tale, and an important piece of literature.
  
  No whit do I account myself in my warlike stature a man more despicable in deeds of battle than Grendel doth himself. Therefore I will not with sword give him the sleep of death, although I well could. Nought doth he know of gentle arms that he should wield weapon against me or hew my shield, fierce though he be in savage dees. Nay, we two shall this night reject the blade, if he dare have recourse to warfare without weapons, and then let the forseeing God, the Holy Lord, adjudge the glory to whichever side him seemeth meet.
  
  This version, translated by J.R.R. Tolkien is published with Sellic Spell: Tolkiens retelling of Beowulf in modern English prose, which of course was much easier to read.
  
  My full review:
  http://100greatestnovelsofalltimeques...
• 
  Robert

  Tolkien made this translation of the most famous extant Anglo Saxon poem early in his career. It's prose which disappointed me when I found out - after purchase! - it is very rhythmical, but I don't suppose it approximates the experience of reading the original very well. Still, I've always liked the story. Flagon thinks the Dragon is hard done by and that everybody (including the Dragon) should have calmed down and discussed the situation properly - that's what he'd have done! Then Beowulf could have had a nice retirement and the Dragon could have had another long nap.
  
  There is a lengthy commentary attached to the translation, taken from Tolkien's notes for lectures and so forth. I'm in no position to weigh in on any of the scholarly arguments raised or how much modern opinion has moved on from where Tolkien stood. Apart from clarifying some obscure points, the main thing I got from reading the commentary was a sense of what issues are faced by editors trying to produce a modern edition or translation of Beowulf and by extension Anglo-Saxon and other Mediaeval literatures and a strong impression of the breadth as well as depth of Tolkien's scholarship and expertise. He demonstrates knowledge not just of Anglo-Saxon literature in toto but of all Mediaeval literature and the history of northern Europe, stretching back into the Dark Ages, including archaeological inferences. Further, he understood all the relevant philology, too. Of course this means I was left way out of my depth at times.
  
  Perhaps (for me) the best part of this book came next - Sellic Spell. This is Tolkien's attempt to write a folk-tale based on the "fairy-story" elements of Beowulf before the historical/legendary elements were merged to produce the story we know. This is delightful. Tolkien's other published fairy stories are very good and this is no exception. His best prose occurs when he is aiming at the folk-tale style and this is no exception.
  
  Finally there are two versions of a verse re-telling of the first part of Beowulf (in a Tolkien-contemporary idiom), which are short but fun.
  
  If you want an accessible translation of Beowulf and a sense of what the associated academic problems are, this is a worthwhile book. If you are an expert in Anglo-Saxon literature this might prove interesting in terms of showing what Tolkien thought in detail about the greatest Anglo-Saxon poem that remains to us. If you want to study the poem seriously this is decidedly not the place to start, though.
• 
  Tanabrus

  Come spesso accade con l'epica antica, per quanto riguarda la storia in sé è più il mito che si è creato intorno al personaggio di Beowulf (e a Grendel) rispetto a quanto non si trovi nel testo.
  
  Però questo libro mette a corredo un'ampia sezione di note relative alla traduzione che evidenzia non solo l'enorme lavoro dietro a questo lavoro di Tolkien, ma anche l'importanza del Beowulf, i riferimenti storici, lo studio e le ipotesi dietro le singole parole.
  Le difficoltà incontrate e le cause di queste difficoltà.
  
  Un libro che sicuramente dirà molto di più a linguisti e magari filologi.
  
  
  (Tra i diversi modi di leggere il libro, io ho optato alla fine per la lettura di Beowulf in italiano, seguita alla fine di ogni paragrafo dal controllo delle note, e dalla lettura delle note alla traduzione relative ai versi appena letti. Non escludo che questo possa avere influito nel giudizio, frammentando e rallentando la lettura.)
• 
  Nonethousand Oberrhein

  To boldly go where monsters are fought
  A multi-layered edition that offers different ways to be enjoyed. Be it with the Old English poem competent translation, or with the erudite commentaries to the translation, or with both authorial re-interpretations (in prose or in poem) of the fight with Grendel, the reader will find much to love about this book, about legends, and about the ancient civilisations the legends are made of. To be read with heart, head and guts… thanks professor Tolkien!
• 
  Knjigoholičarka

  Možda u nekom drugom životu i pročitam ovo izdanje, ali u ovom teško.
• 
  saïd

  This review is of the translation by J.R.R. Tolkien.
  
  This translation is not my favourite (which is hardly an unpopular opinion to hold), so I remember being surprised that Tolkien's version was prose instead of poetry. The fact that Tolkien for all intents and purposes did not plan on its publication explains a lot about this loose translation and associated commentary—it was more of a diverting exercise instead of a scholarly endeavour. That said, I definitely enjoyed reading it! I would recommend this book to scholars or fans of Tolkien rather than those studying Beowulf; translation is often as much a reflection of the translator as the original work is of the author themself (although it's not supposed to be—a good translation preserves the original author's voice to a fault).
• 
  Suzannah

  Tolkien's translation is amazing.
  
  I've yet to read the commentaries.
• 
  lucy✨

  “Many foes can give a man but one death”
  
  I am slightly biased due to my adoration of Tolkien, but it was so inspiring to see Tolkien’s passion evident within his translation of Beowulf. As a complete novice when it comes to Anglo-Saxon tales and language, I read Tolkien’s commentary (compiled by Christopher Tolkien) with the awe that comes from appreciating but not fully understanding the knowledge of a master.
  
  Despite not being on the same level as Tolkien (who is really?), I could still access the tale of Beowulf and his own creation titled Sellic Spell. The binary, and blurring thereof, of man versus beast was intriguingly examined.
  
  Perhaps the most entertaining aspect of this collection was recognising the seeds that Tolkien carried from these old tales and planted into his own writings concerning Middle-earth.
  
  
• 
  Othy

  An amazing addition to Beowulf scholarship. In his commentary on the poem, Tolkien demonstrates the argument of his seminal Beowulf essay: that the poem is best read as a poem, not either as a purely historic document (as it was in his day) nor as a New-historical document (as it too often is in our day). Tolkien's readings keep the poem from fragmenting into a mass of confusion but instead shows it as a work of a variety of interconnected parts: it pulls from historical knowledge and fable/tale traditions, utilizes poetic diction to a highly aesthetic degree, and is, in the end, just simply a good story. I have rarely come across a better group of readings of this poem and, as a student of Beowulf myself, I find the commentary to be invaluable to both my understanding and enjoyment of the poem. Tolkien's two ventures into creative work (Sellic Spell and the Lay of Beowulf) are also extremely enjoyable and act as their own aesthetic commentaries on the world of the poem.
• 
  Stephanie

  I'M SO EXCITED
  
  I JUST CAN'T HIDE IT
  
  *frolics through a meadow of tiny pine trees and dragon scales*
  
  Merged review:
  
  Translation: 3/5 stars - prose, a little archaic, good translation of the gist of the text but loses a lot of the imagery and poetry
  
  Commentary: 5/5 stars - I learned a lot and it is frightening how much Tolkien knows about this subject
  
  Sellic Spell: 4/5 stars - cool retelling, bro
  
  Lay of Beowulf: 3/5 stars - kinda random, leaves a lot out, but a very nice little poem
• 
  Jeannette

  
  Also available on the WondrousBooks blog.
  
  To begin, when I got this book, I kind of did not see the part after the colon, so I thought this was going to be a Beowulf retelling by Tolkien. In fact, this book is his translation of the Old English text from his early career as a translator, together with the lectures he taught in Oxford on the topic and edited by his son Christopher Tolkien.
  
  When I was reading the book, I felt more drawn to its scholarly merit - the choice of words, the explanation behind their roots and the Old English grammar, the potential misleading/different meanings and Tolkien's reasoning behind the meaning of the text. It was also interesting for me to see Christopher Tolkien's commentary, because it's obvious that he dedicated a tremendous amount of time and research in shaping his father's work so that it's fit for publishing.
  
  That being said, J.R.R. Tolkien probably never meant for this translation to reach the public. It was done in when he was young and more inexperienced as a translator, which can be seen also in Christopher's notes on parts which his father edited later on, or intended to but never quite did. So, from that perspective, perhaps this version of Beowulf was not what it was supposed to be. I would say that the piece was rather hard to read in the sense that a lot of the expressions in it were direct translations of the Old English text which didn't give the intended meaning to a person not familiar with original. I saw some very good comments in other Goodreads reviews from people who had read other translations of Beowulf and could pinpoint the actual meaning of certain verses as opposed to the literal meaning that Tolkien used. I'm obviously not going to into that, as those are not my original observations, but I would recommend to anyone who's curious to go through the top reviews.
  
  Beyond that, in all honesty, without there being anything wrong with the story, I was just not drawn to Beowulf. This is not the first time I've read an old epic and it's also not the first time I've felt a certain amount of story intricacy and a level of epic drama missing for my own preferences.
  
  What I really did enjoy, however, were Tolkien's lectures on Beowulf. In a way, I'd like to think I liked the explanation of Beowulf better than Beowulf. Tolkien's analysis is mesmerizing in the depth of detail and research he encompasses, from the language itself, to the history and folklore of the 6th century Scandinavians. I learned quite a bit about the region in a time which was quite murky in my historical knowledge. Also, it was equally fascinating to see the influence of this text on Tolkien's Middle Earth - from the origin of the orcs, which are referenced in Tolkien's lectures on Beowulf, to the structure of events, places and conversations (like the fact that Meduseld is based on Heorot) and even the names of certain characters, like the guest appearance of Eomer.
• 
  Samuel G. Parkison

  “They had slain their foe—valor had vanquished life; yea, together they had destroyed him, those two princes of the house—of such sort should a man be, a loyal liege at end.” ~ Beowulf, 2274-2277 (Tolkien’s translation)
• 
  Ron

  Beowulf is a unique work in the history of English literature. By chance—or providence—this single Old English tale survives, giving moderns a window into a world, and a language, very different from our own. And yet a culture and language which was our direct antecedent. More than you want to know about this epic poem can be found on Wikipedia.
  
  J. R. R. Tolkien undertook this prose translation early (1920s) in his tenure as a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College, Oxford. The accompanying commentary was drawn from his later lecture notes. Tolkien did not publish this translation for reasons explained in his 1936 lecture “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” and “On Translating Beowulf” (in the book
  The Monsters and the Critics and other essays). In short, Tolkien thought that anything short of an alliterative poem lost too much in translation. He also recognized such as an almost impossible feat—to translate an Old English alliterative poem into a modern English alliterative poem. This translation is not, therefore, the latest nor most definitive. It is significant for Tolkien’s notes and its place in his literary heritage.
  
  If you’re new to Beowulf, first read the poem itself—skip the introductions and notes. Yes, it will be hard going, but wade through it slowly. Savor the tone and glean what you do understand. Then read the commentary. Unfortunately, since Tolkien prepared these notes for those studying Old English, there’s a lot of philology mixed in with his ruminations about the back story and meaning of Beowulf. But enough gems hide in those strata to make the reading worthwhile.
  
  Beowulf is important for something else. Here the thoughtful reader finds the bedrock on which Tolkien built Middle Earth. Yes, in this story we find the culture, the heroic people, even the mythology and “history” which inspired Tolkien’s famous works. The great hall, ancient swords of power, the burgled dragon, the old king, even (line 112) “eotenas ond ylfe ond orceas” (If you can’t translate at least two of those for yourself, turn in your copy of
  The Lord of the RingsLord of the Rings.) Yes, it’s all here, except the hobbits. Those were Tolkien’s invention.
  
  How Beowulf connects to Middle Earth is obliquely discussed in “On Fairy-Stories” in
  The Tolkien Reader.
  
  Included also is “Sellic Spell,” Tolkien’s attempt to deconstruct the greater work, identifying the “fairy” elements. Entertaining. (See also Tolkien’s
  Finn and Hengest: The Fragment and the Episode for another fragment.)
  
  Even more, here also is the sad feeling—in the final speech of Hrothgar and the death of Beowulf—of a culture trying to reach up through the darkness around it to grasp at the dimly remembered glory, power and riches of empires and emperors long gone. Cultures like Anglo-Saxon England and the men and elves of Middle Earth’s Third Age.
  
  “Here we learn what men of the twilight of time thought of themselves. And, of course, the writings and the elegy are good in themselves, and not misspent – since the ashes of Beowulf himself are now to be laid in a barrow with much the same gold … and pass into the oblivion of the ages – but for the poet, and the chance relenting of time: to spare this one poem out of so many…. Of the others we know not.”
  
  Read and enjoy.
  
• 
  David Mosley

  Christopher Tolkien must see the end of his career (and life) in the not too distant future. The rapidity with which previously unpublished works of his father have been coming out in the last 3 decades is staggering when all is considered. That said, I love Christopher Tolkien for it and the Tolkien Estate and the fans of Tolkien (not simply the fans of any one of his works) will be the lesser for it.
  
  What Christopher Tolkien has provided us with in this volume is threefold. The first is Tolkien's translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic, Beowulf with accompanying notes. The translation is excellent. Tolkien decided on a prose translation (as opposed to Heaney's verse). Nevertheless, Tolkien's prose does two things Heaney's translation cannot. The first is to give the full sense of each word and phrase. Not being bound to the necessary limits of poetry, Tolkien can help us better enter the sense of the text. What Tolkien also gives us, however, is the sense of rhythm and alliteration without versification. Read portions of the text aloud and you will find yourself reading to a rhythm and that much of the alliteration is kept intact.
  
  The second thing Christopher Tolkien gives us is his father's lectures on the Poem. Tolkien's lectures at Oxford only covered the first half of Beowulf (that was all that was required of the students in those days), but his commentary is nonetheless excellent. Tolkien helps make sense of Anglo-Saxon turns of phrase as well as establishes the historial (as he calls it) aspect of the poem and the fairy-story aspect. The text is given in the form Christopher found in his father's notes, so it is not polished prose, but it is worth the read for those interested in the poem itself.
  
  The third and final section of this book is Tolkien's own retellings of the story of Beowulf. First are the three versions of Sellic Spell (Anglo-Saxon for wonder story). This is Tolkien's attempt at uncovering and writing the purely fairy-story aspect of Beowulf, divorced from the historial. The first version is the latest and most polished and does not include Grendel's mother's attack on Heorot nor Beowulf's (or as he is called in Sellic Spell Beewulf) battle with the dragon and his death. The second version is older, includes much from the "final" but does not include certain characters and does include Grendel's mother's attack on Heorot. The final version is the Anglo-Saxon which Christopher provided without translation to show his father's fluency in the language. After Sellic Spell, there are to Lays of Beowulf, both of them verse retellings, in rhyming couplets (primarily), of the poem up to the defeat of Grendel's mother (in the longer version and Grendel in the shorter) with a hint at Beowulf's death by dragon. These retellings show not only Tolkien's gifts as writer and poet, but also his understanding of and love for the poem itself.
  
  This text is an essential for all who have a deep interest in Tolkien, myth, fairy stories, and Beowulf.
• 
  Lisa

  I always find it interesting to read Tolkien's ventures outside of Middle Earth but really, reading his most recently released works such as The Fall of Arthur and this, his own translation of the original old english epic, Beowulf, it doesn't feel a world apart from the world Hobbits inhabit. The reason for this is that Tolkien, once a professor of Ango-saxon at Oxford University, was obviously influenced by the literary works he delivered lectures on.
  His interest in old languages lead him to create the wonderful elvish languages of his fictional Arda. It is only natural then, that Professor Tolkien would be fascinated by the earliest surviving poem written in old english. Translations of Beowulf into modern English have obviously been done before many, many times, and Tolkien's own version is another to add to this list, however fans of Tolkien will recognise his familiar storytelling within the text itself, it is very reminiscent of the way The Lord of the Rings is written. Tolkien's Beowulf feels very Tolkien-esque, and therefore I love it.
  
  This particular first edition also contains Tolkien's Sellic Spell, his own short story based on the Old Norse Saga Hrólfs saga kraka and most excitingly, what Tolkien scholars consider to be the inspiration behind the character of Beorn the shapeshifter in The Hobbit.
  
  If you love Tolkien's stories, and have an interest in his writing and influences this is an absolute must.
• 
  Madeline

  Fun to read a prose translation of Beowulf. I did not read Tolkien's extensive commentary, but I read the introudctions which were interesting and enlightening.
• 
  I'

  Aunque compré este libro cuando salió no ha sido hasta ahora cuando lo he leído. Y lo he leído motivada por una asignatura de literatura de la universidad. Gracias a esto, he perseverado con la lectura pero ya esta.
  
  ¿Por qué no lo he dado por finalizado? Sencillamente, mientras iba leyendo el comentario del poema, me he dado cuenta que no estoy reteniendo casi nada del mismo. Es muy interesante a nivel etimológico pero no consigo retener nada de su lectura por lo que siento como que estoy perdiendo el tiempo al leerlo. Y es tedioso, oh, muy tedioso.
  
  Recapitulando.
  Si eres fanboy de Tolkien y quieres todos sus libros, cómpralo.
  Si conoces Beowulf y te gusta y quieres leer la traducción de Tolkien, cómpralo.
  Si ninguno de estos dos casos es el tuyo yo me lo pensaría.
  
  Sí, es interesante, pero al cabo de un rato se hace un petardazo. Esto es aburrido. Y esto viniendo de una persona persistente. Así que me duele en el alma ver el nombre de Tolkien al lado de dos estrellas, pero honestamente, este libro no me ha inspirado más allá del "pos oc".
• 
  Jeremy

  I read
  Sellic Spell: The Final Text (pp. 360–86)—Tolkien's "attempt to reconstruct the Anglo-Saxon tale that lies behind the folk-tale element in Beowulf" (p. 355; cf. p. xiii: "an imagined story of Beowulf in an early form")—on July 6, 2016. Surprisingly humorous. Sellic Spell means "wondrous tale" or "strange tale" (p. 358) or "marvellous tale" (p. 348) and is used in Beowulf: "some wondrous tale rehearsed in order due" (p. 74, emphasis added; see p. 349: "It was not just a wild invention, but a known tale properly unfolded").
  
  I read "The Lay of Beowulf" (pp. 415–25) on July 7, 2016. Tolkien's son Christopher "remember[s] his singing this ballad to me when I was seven or eight years old, in the early 1930s" (p. 416).
  
  Lewis mentions Beowulf as a sellic spell in Ch. 3 of his Preface to Paradise Lost.
• 
  alienticia

  li pra aula não entendi o que tava acontecendo
  mas po
  doideira os escandinavo
• 
  Maggi LeDuc

  This book was far harder to get through than I thought it'd be, but far worth the effort. I learned so many interesting new facts as well as got a lot out of the story itself.
• 
  Bjorn

  Hwaet!
  Lo!
  Ja,
  So,
  Bro!
  
  A few thoughts on reading
  four
  different
  translations of Beowulf.
  
  Gaeð a wyrd swa hio scel.
  Fate goeth ever as she must.
  Alltid går ödet som det skall.
  Fate goes ever as fate must.
  Bro, fate can fuck you up.
  
  I'm honestly surprised at how good the story itself is. I expected a 1000-plus-year-old poem about a warrior to be a lot more simplistic; and yet, while I'm sure a modern reader will add extra depths of it (and miss some depth the author thought they made clear), there's so much here. There's the hero myth, with Campbell's hero's journey seemingly already in place all those years ago; Beowulf starts out as a typical impossibly valiant and righteous hero and ends up an old man out of his depth. So many other characters around him do the same; Hrothgar too old to fight, Grendel's mother desperate to avenge her only son, the dragon who just wants to sleep on its hoard until it becomes fairytale...
  
  Oft sceall eorl monig ānes willan wrǣc ādrēogan, swā ūs geworden is. Ne meahton wē gelǣran lēofne þēoden rīces hyrde rǣd ǣnigne, þæt hē ne grētte gold-weard þone...
  Oft must it be that many men through one man's will shall suffer woe, even as is now befallen us. We could not advise our king beloved, the shepherd of this realm, to any well-counselled course, that he should not approach the keeper of the gold...
  Ofta måste mången jarl för ens skull lida förföljelse, såsom oss vederfarits. Ej kunde vi öfvertala med något råd den käre fursten, rikets herde, att ej angripa den der guldväktaren...
  Often when one man follows his own will many are hurt. This happened to us. Nothing we advised could ever convince the prince we loved, our land’s guardian, , not to vex the custodian of the gold...
  One man slipped down this slope, he alone deciding, but we rest are roped to him; many will suffer similar fates now. No counsellor could convince our king, our old and beloved protector, that he shouldn't come at the guardian of this gold...
  
  And then there's how well it still works as an actual story centered around battles. There's actual action in this, in glorious, gory detail.
  
  Þā gēn gūð-cyning mǣrða gemunde, mægen-strengo slōh hilde-bille, þæt hyt on heafolan stōd nīþe genȳded; Nægling forbærst...
  Now once more the king of battles recalled his renownéd deeds, with might strength he smote with his warlike sword, and fast in the head it stood driven by fierce hate. Naegling burst asunder!
  Då tänkte stridskonungen än en gång på sin ära och hjeltekraft, slog till med svärdet, så att det, drifvet af fiendekraft, fastnade i hufvudet. Då brast Nägling...
  Inspired again by the thought of glory, the war-king threw his whole strength behind a sword-stroke and connected with the skull. And Naegling snapped.
  Invigorated by the thought of victory, the king used all his strength to strike, lunging at possibility. Naegling was the victim of the swing, snapping like a straw.
  
  But there's also the historical detail of it - which probably depends on exactly who you think the Geats are or where it was originally thought up (having grown up on the west coast of Sweden, I guess I'm partial). It's not a story of one person, it's a story set right at the peak of the migration period, with kingdoms rising and falling, conquering and disappearing, marrying and beheading, and even outright picking up and moving somewhere else. It's incredibly tempting to read it as one of very few even vaguely accurate histories of Scandinavia in the 4- and 500s, centuries before Lindisfarne drew a before/after line in the sand and a full 500 years before the church started writing things down Officially... and you probably shouldn't, whatever Tolkien's VERY extensive (and varying in interest) notes say. Yeah, some of the people mentioned here probably existed in real life, but there are also dragons and ogres, so. But still; the story is one of a kingdom starting to disappear from the map, peoples facing an unknown future. As both Heaney and Headley point out in their notes, that still makes it incredibly relevant.
  
  (It's weird that Beowulf isn't more widely read in Sweden, that we've let the English claim it for themselves even though it's (supposedly) set here. Not that we need any more romanticising of a violent past, but... weird.)
  
  Swylce giōmor-gyd Gēatisc mēowle, bunden-heorde, song sorg-cearig. Sǣde geneahhe, þæt hīo hyre here-geongas hearde ondrēde wæl-fylla worn, werudes egesan, hȳnðo ond hæft-nȳd. Heofon rēce swealg.
  There too a lamentable lay many a Geatish maiden with braided tresses for Beowulf made, singing in sorrow, oft repeating that days of evil she sorely feared, many a slaying cruel and terror armed, ruin and thraldom's bond. The smoke faded in the sky.
  Slikt sorgkväde kvad en kvinna av gautaätt för att hon fruktade mycket manfall och mordisk härnad, smälek och fångenskap. Full av rök var luften.
  A Geat woman too sang out in grief; with hair bound up, she unburdened herself of her worst fears, a wild litany of nightmare and lament: her nation invaded, enemies on the rampage, bodies in piles, slavery and abasement. Heaven swallowed the smoke.
  Then another dirge rose, woven uninvited by a Geatish woman, louder than the rest. She tore her hair and screamed her horror at the hell that was to come: More of the same. Reaping, raping, feasts of blood, iron fortunes marching across her country, claiming her body. The sky sipped the smoke and smiled.
  
  And all because one guy whipped his slave, who ran away and stole a goblet, which awoke the dragon, which forced an old and tired man to fight to the death, and his successor to throw away the riches for honour's sake. Also known as "every other war in this story". It's fate AKA history coming for the Geats, and they know that 1500 years from now, people won't even agree on where and who they were.
  
  A few thoughts on the translations:
  
  I understand Tolkien's importance in lifting this story up to Literature. That said, both his and Wickberg's translations are a bit too respectful for my taste. They try to recreate the poem as it was, even though the world it was written in, the events it alludes to, not only no longer exist but are almost completely forgotten - arguably were already fading into mist by the time it was written down and had "CHRIST (who btw is this new thing called 'English') RULES OK" scrawled all over it. Translating the stories of Scyld and Ingeld as if everyone knew them already, as if Beowulf was part of a greater context, doesn't work. There is no objective Beowulf anymore. It has to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into our context. It's not for nothing that both Heaney and Headley explicitly put work into establishing the actual narrator; whether a dignified old Ulsterman telling stories by the fire, or an old drunk at the bar demanding that the kids listen to him.
  
  Nobody knows what to do with Modthryth. "If we assume that there's a 'not' or an 'unlike' in here somewhere..." The only one who seems to actually revel in the idea of a queen becoming a figure of fear, of actually making a mark on history, is Headley.
  
  There's something to be said that Tolkien is the only one of the four to take that Geatish woman screaming out her grief at the end and reduce her to "many a Geatish maid"... It's also a bit ironic that Tolkien, who complained so much about LotR translations getting too flowery, extends the text by quite a bit in his attempt to turn it into a 19th century fairytale.
  
  Oh yeah, they're four different stories. Tolkien writes historical fairytale; Wickberg heroic history; Heaney poetic elegy; Headley barbed-wire action movie.
  
  Asking for a historically correct translation of Beowulf is a bit like asking for historically correct Shakespeare - not only are they already wildly anachronistic to begin with, but the world they depict and were written in no longer exist. Tolkien and Wickberg try to create an illusion of antiquity and authenticity simply by rewinding their language a couple of decades, and it's partly a very good illusion, though I honestly find Wickberg more readable; Tolkien gets lost in outlining LotR (he really stole a LOT here) and trying in vain to make the meter work in prose, though his notes make up for a lot of it. Wickberg at least writes solidly in a 19th century tradition, stuffy and high-minded and with dreams of the glorious Germanics of yore in his eye. Heaney and Headley, on the other hand, aren't ashamed of modernising, and of getting inside the characters as something more than just long-dead agents of Fate; Heaney viewing it through his Irish-English-Gaelic history, and Headley coming at it from the other direction, peppering the text with curses and memes like it's a twitter thread - yet they both somehow keep that depth of both language and myth. It's easy to get hung up on Headley's more ultra-modern passages, and not all of them work, but it's not like Tolkien didn't throw in modernisms either (a text this heavy on allegory and kennings HAS to be modernised to work). So Heaney puts the emphasis on the shifting fates of peoples, conquered but persisting; Headley on the myth, the women and monsters eclipsed by the shining hero.
  
  For me: Tolkien for the notes, Heaney for weight and beauty, Headley for sword-edge and sheer joy of language.
  
  So, yeah, hwaet a ride, bro.