Beowulf Links
a few really nice supplementary material links. Sure you can just use CliffNotes or SparkNotes to get the story summary, theme, -yawn- and character guides, but why not explore a bit more and find some peachy-keen information?
Link One (why recreate what is already great?)
More background info
Extra-credit for the first forty-seven responses posing either A) a significant tidbit of Beowulf trivia - but it must be as interesting as the fact that Anne Hathaway was 8 years older than Shakespeare when they married (and probably preggy!) or B) theme driven astounding revelation, ie: Grendel represents man's sinfulness.
Enjoy!
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posted by erdecker @ 8:06 PM
12 comments
12 Comments:
One thing i thought that was interesting was that Sir Federic Madden, who decided to preserve the text of Beowulf, had to piece the burned pieces back together. Even after it was framed, the words couldn't be seen, so now they use ultraviolet light in order to scan the text.
Being the Tolkien geek that I am, I have to post this as my 'interesting fact':
JRR Tolkien was one of the few scholars who believed that Beowulf should be seen as a great piece of literary art and an achetype for other great literature, rather than just an examination of confusing Old English text, vocabulary, and literary techniques. Check out "Beowulf, The Monsters and the Critics" written by him. In it Tolkien basically shoots down the people who only study the vocabulary and text of the poem, instead of reading it for content. I guess I'd have to say that I agree with him.
Beowulf has been pushed and shoved around. Grimus Jonsson Thorkelin, the Royal Archivist of Denmark in 1815 believed that Beowulf was a Danish poem, Beowulf was a Danish Hero, and over all it was a Danish Epic. On the other hand, German scholars said that the poem was composed in northern Germany, in the homeland of the Angles, that the Britains invaded in the 5th cent. I guess everyone one wants a piece of the pie.
Beowulf had a sci-fi movie adaptation made in 1999 (it flopped), and a more traditional movie adaptation, entitled "Beowulf and Grendel", had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.
Here is the IMDB site for the more recent of the two.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0402057/maindetails
-Mike M.
A little interesting tidbit here. A man by the name of Gareth Hinds actually created Beowulf comic books. You can find them online at www.thecomic.com/beowulf.html There are 3 different parts, the first one outlining Beowulf vs. Grendel, the second Beowulf vs. Grendel's mother (which is now out of print, sorry) and the third Beowulf vs. the Dragon which proves to be "The heart-wrenching conclusion to the greatest hero's myth of all times." Get your copy online now...40 pages each for only $5! They are actually very artistic, though, and they help put an image to the characters, so check them out.
Mostly to make Marah squeal with delight, I found an interesting Beowulf/ Lord of the Rings connection. Wulf ('wulf' in Old English) was a term that Tolkien used to describe a man who usurped the throne of Rohan in the LOTR novels...the character Beowulf also gained a throne...he was king!! Also, Frodo in Old English is defined as: frod 'wise', 'prudent', 'sage', freoda 'protector',defender', freodo 'peace', 'security'. The characters Beowulf and Frodo both encompass all of these character traits, and it can be concluded that Beowulf had a strong impact on Tolkien's choice of protagonist in The Lord of the Rings. OMG. LOTR. The End.
Beowulf has with stood the test of time because of its amazing heroic themes and archetypes as well as the age old clash between good and evil. The timelessness of these themes became apparent to me because six years ago I saw a movie, the 13th warrior (one of my favorite movies). Only after reading Beowulf did I realize that the 13th Warrior is based of a modern novel version, with creative license, of Beowulf by Michael Crichton. The comparisons are innumerable, like the hero Buliwyf (movie) to Beowulf and monsters “Wendols” sound suspiciously like Grendel. The movie is from the perspective of someone in Buliwyf’s party. The movie explains all things realistically, so the person whose perspective the movie is from could have written Beowulf because he would have explained things supernaturally. I definitely recommend the movie and am sure the book is good to.
heather said:
Mike's comment about Beowulf being a movie got me wondering if its ever been adapted in other performing media. In fact it has: quite recently (2001) David Calcutt wrote a play entitled "Beowulf". After reading one review and summary of the play, it seemed like Calcutt kept most of the orginal elements. One difference that the reviewer noticed was: instead of Beowulf finishing off the Dragon, Wiglaf does (while Beowulf lies alone and dying). The playwright also took out the "christian gloss" found in the translated versions (obviously not in the original-as we talked about in class). Then at the end of that article it said the playwright was inspired to write the play because he read a version of Beowulf as a chlid!-A kid's version of Beowulf?-That idea led me back to google, and right away I found 2 "kid" versions of Beowulf, one looked a little more "kid-friendly" than the other. "The Hero Beowulf" is in prose, and the author, Eric A. Kimmel, only included the events from the first half of part one of the poem (Beowulf's youth, going to Heorot, killing Grendel). It leaves out Grendel's mother's revenge (because Beowulf killing a monster is okay, just not a monster killing humans??). It also leaves out the Dragon! Although the book's in prose, it (supposedly)does a good job of trying to include caesura, but leaves out the keenings found in the translations. If we could get ahold of this book, I think it'd be an fun read for class-and be a nice reviewer of the basic plot at the beginning (when maybe not all of us were used to the style of the translation yet). Hint-hint to those who work at the public library (mon, tina, delena):)
In Scandinavian sources, Beowulf is very similar to a guy named Bodvar Bjarki. However the Beowulf story has been modified so much (in events and characters) over the centuries that it's very hard to find these similarities with the present day story.
How very exciting, a Scandinavian hero guy!
I didn't notice it as much in Beowulf as I did in Grendel, but as the shaper sang of two brothers, one good and one evil, i immediatly thought of Cain and Abel. While searching through those links provided on this blog, I found someone comparing cain to grendel and explaining how grendel and his mother are described as descendents from Cain. They are the outcasts from society and the apposing force wich creates the evil to make the majority of mankind look good. ('evil is when two goods come into conflict' ~unknown) *Beowulf and Gredel are, in a theoretical way, brothers if the shaper was indeed truthful. The jelousy and hatered between siblings as well as between the forces of good and evil are examples of similarities between Cain and Grendel. (Some people believe other similarities between them include magical powers and drinking blood, but i'm not ready to jump that far.)
The link was: http://csis.pace.edu/grendel/projs1a/cain.html
I know Mike already talked about the sci-fi making of Beowulf, but i found a link that said that a movie of Beowulf is going to come out in 2007. There are some pretty well known actors involved, such as Anthony Hopkins, Angelina Jolie, and John Malkovich.
This is the website.. http://imdb.com/title/tt0442933/
Sibley
Excellent seach, Sibley! I'll buy popcorn for everyone, opening night at CineMagic in 2007!
Look what those Canadians made! http://imdb.com/title/tt0402057/
Or if that doesn't interest you, just check out the names of the cast members. "Darren" seems pretty tame compared to Þórður Helgi Guðjónsson!!
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