Beowulf Links Take Two
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 thirty-six 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 @ 8:55 PM
14 comments
14 Comments:
There will be a Beowulf movie coming out in 2007 and Anthony Hopkins is playing Kind Hrothgar, Robin Wright Penn is playing Wealtheow, ANGELINA JOLIE is playing Grendel's Mom, Crispin Glover is playing Grendel, John Malkovich is playing Unferth...
Okay well there is a cast list but this will be like the first Beowulf movie that isn't all sci-fi and actually has actors that are known in it.
Here is a link to it.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0442933/
Lorelei
An opera based on the novel Grendel debuted at the Los Angeles Opera on June 1, 2006 before showing throughout the summer at the Lincoln Center Festival in NYC. We should get them to do a special showing of it for us when we go in January! Ooooh, educational!
Beowulf has many blurry or missing lines that have never been able to be recovered. That is until NOW! New technology is helping use digital imaging to capture images of the frail manuscript and to look deeper.
We may find out the WHOLE story. Check it out!
http://historymedren.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.uky.edu/%7Ekiernan/BL/kportico.html
A card game based on Beowolf is available for purchase and is created by Fantasy Flight games. The creative name for this game is Beowolf, The Legend. Check it out! http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/beowulf.html
-David
Sorry, I didn't put the link on mine. Don't count this as one of the first 36 responses!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grendel
For all you gamers out there (Andrew S!!), there is a Beowulf video game! Hrothgar and Grendel are included, but there is a group called YLFE who help Beowulf in his battles but possibly have alterior motives that come into play as you progress through the game. SWEET, huh?
http://www.gamesfoundation.com/beowulf/login/news.html
--Katrina
Was at Fazoli's Kids Night tonight. Archetypes galore arose in the artwork of a genius homeschooled neighbor of mine, approx. 9 years old.
I scanned Alexander's drawings HERE:
http://i9.tinypic.com/2ngep0h.jpg
Notice the raised, indignant arms of "grendel" throwing wealtheow around. Also, how the monster uses his bare claws rather than any of the tools (supposedly use of tools makes us human)
http://i10.tinypic.com/2ib0wtv.jpg
Here, "the dragon has burned the temple and killed these guys [pointing], some are still there standing and screaming while the dragon burns the priest on the top of the temple"
(That scarily enough was a direct quote from Alexander!)
Talk about symbolizing disbeleif of religion.
Originally, the dragon was not chained but he added that when I pointed out it was "not good" that the dragon was left to kill at will.
Maybe my brain was just in beowulf/grendel mode, but I thought it was a neat share for the blog.
Jenny
The Encyclopedia of Things that Never Were states that Grendel was a monster of a danish lake, and posessed the power to turn into a human form. Little else is said on the topic of what he looks like, which leads me to assume that the book takes its information from Beowulf, which leaves much to imagination.
Also, a movie called "Beowulf and Grendel" came out recently, which not only portrays Grendel as a man, granted one of monstrous sizes, but stars Gerard Butler, who played the Phantom of the Opera, and Stellan Skarsgård, who played Bootstrap Bill, as Beowulf and Hrothgar.
http://www.beowulfandgrendel.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grendel
This site has some interesting facts about what Grendel was, and references in popular literature and games.
I don't know if people already know this or not, but I didn't. I found a website that had an article about an English professor who accidentally discovered a translation of Beowulf by JRR Tolkien in 2002.
http://www.puddingbowl.org/archives/books/000283.php
Meghan O'Keefe
Beowulf only survives in one manuscript, written approx. 1000, and that is currently displayed in the British Museum in the collection of Sir Robert Cotton.
From Yahoo! Education.
Beowulf Haiku!!
a contest from the Beowulf card game (thanks David!)
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/beowulfcontest.html
Katrina, I could only get your link to work once I added "html" after the period. (just like my above link, probably - blogspot has a limited line read) Great trivia site there, too.
Paul, was that info in the introductory material also?
Beowulf was published in comic book form a few years ago. Illustrated by Gareth Hinds, it claims to be faithful to the original poem.
Website with more information:
http://www.thecomic.com/thecomic/beowulf.htm
Another comic book series titled "Beowulf: Gods and Monsters" is less faithful and decided to be a bit creative. This series concentrates on Beowfulf after he's been granted immorality and fending off evil-doers in New York. Faithful to the poem? At certain required parts the publishers claim.
Link: http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=4693
-Eric
There is a club band in the Europe, who have released some cds, that named themselves after Grendel, and some of their music was inspired by the story. They call their music dark and chaotic.
http://www.metropolis-records.com/artists/?artist=grendel
I'm not sure if we're allowed to comment on Grendel, but while reading Grendel, I noticed how important the role of the scop was to the Danish society. As Grendel said, the scop seemed to tell the truth, and it was nearly impossible to not believe what the scop said about the history of the Danes. However, being an outsider, Grendel could take a step back and realize how much the scop actually skewed the Danes' reality about what happened in their past. The scop created the Danes' reality about their history.
I believe that the role of the scop parallels perfectly with the media in today's world. In much of our educational careers, we are warned not to believe everything that the media tells us. In order to be an accurately informed voter we must explore all angles to each subject. However, many Americans don't mind being spoon-fed current events by the media. Instead, twe allow he media to shape our habits and beliefs. If we don't take a step back and determine what is really the truth, the media continues to contribute to the degradation of society, or at the very least...the all too quickly-formed opinion about ourselves as a society.
-courtney
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