Tolkien's Beowulf

[Galin]

Not sure if this is the right forum for this, or if anyone else has posted the information yet, but...

... the Tolkien Library describes...

'In a world rights deal, the Tolkien Estate has signed with HarperCollins to publish for the first time Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary by J.R.R. Tolkien. This is truly exciting news! Not only do we get Tolkien's translation of Beowulf and commentary by J.R.R. Tolkien but it will also include "Sellic Spell", an unpublished short story by J.R.R. Tolkien, re-creating the (lost) folk-tale underlying the Norse Hrólfs saga kraka and Tolkien's prose work that was to serve as the background for Beowulf. The original manuscript is held by the Bodleian Library and will now be published for the very first time.'

Huzzah! And Sellic Spell too!

[Valandil]

Maybe best in ... I don't know where!

I saw something about this though - and it's great! I knew he did some significant things with Beowulf, but was surprised to learn that nothing had been published.

[Earniel]

His Beowulf lecture was legendary, I can imagine quite a few scholars happy to now see his actual translation.

I think I will keep an eye out for it. I let the last King Arthur book pass because it because it didn't grab me. But Beowulf is another matter. It will be interesting to compare it to the Heaney translation which I have and liked very much.

[Alcuin]

London Telegraph review of Tolkien’s Beowulf translation. “Moderately uncomplimentary” would be a fair distillation of the review, which complains that it is “long-winded prose” instead of poetry, but then goes on to note that it is a “literal rendering … faithful to the formulaic circumlocutions, inversions and amplifications of Old English poetry”. And this:

Almost lost to fire in 1731, the contents of the tattered 10th-century [Beowulf] manuscript were first published in 1815. For over 100 years, The Beowulf, as it was known, was regarded as a valuable historical source by scholars, but held no interest for critics seeking narrative skill or poetic subtlety.

JRR Tolkien changed all that. “Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics” (1936), a paper he delivered to the British Academy shortly before the publication of The Hobbit, strapped a patriotic rocket to the poem's reputation. It was, Tolkien argued, the work of “a mind lofty and thoughtful”, “a greater man than most of us” and (importantly) “an English man”, whose Christian-era evocation of a pagan past “moves in our northern world beneath our northern sky”.

I confess that I did not know (or at least failed to recall) that the manuscript of Beowulf was almost lost to a fire.

The reviewer then goes on to mention is effect on The Lord of the Rings’ Tolkien’s effect upon WH Auden, who was, he claims, inspired to become a poet after hearing one of Tolkien’s recitations; and mentions other authors and poets who studied under or were influenced by Tolkien. (Kingsley Amis seems not to have enjoyed Tolkien as professor.)

Finally, this bit:

Christopher Tolkien has added as a commentary some lively lecture notes from the Thirties, which pedantically deprecate the standard translation of the Anglo-Saxon metaphorical “kenning” for the sea as “whale-road” (“the unfortunate sound-association with ‘railroad’ increases the ineptitude”, Professor Tolkien observes, suggesting “a sort of semi-submarine steam-engine”).

Also included are two minor original compositions, “Selic [sic] Spell” and “The Lay of Beowulf”. The editor [i.e., Christopher Tolkien] recalls his father singing the latter “more than 80 years ago”.

I’m not certain the reviewer intentionally constructed the oxymoron “lively lecture notes …. which pedantically deprecate”, but it’s good to know about other material included in the volume.

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Alcuin

I confess that I did not know (or at least failed to recall) that the manuscript of Beowulf was almost lost to a fire.

Likewise, but I do recall ever seeing a page of the manuscript that indeed looked a bit singed. The life of ancient manuscripts is sometimes as exciting as the lives of heroes they speak of.

I’m not certain the reviewer intentionally constructed the oxymoron “lively lecture notes …. which pedantically deprecate”, but it’s good to know about other material included in the volume.

Aha, always interesting. Thanks for mentioning it.

*is imagining a sea full of giant, steam-powered whales, interesting mental image I'll say*

[Earniel]

I have now read Tolkien's Beowulf and I have to say, for those with an interest in the poem, it's a real treat indeed.

Tolkien goes for a prose translation, rather than a poetic one, but I think this one will be much more excessible for laymen like me with an interest for, but not a great understanding of Anglo-Saxon literature.

But there is far more than just the translation. The commentary is what makes this book worth it, IMO. There were a lot of angles (heehee) Tolkien covers, and not just the linguistic ones. He delves into the historic relationships between peoples behind the poem that help picture the scene more clearly, customs are talked about and the way he highlights the significance of certain scenes (some of which totally escaped me on just reading the translation) is enlightening.

I did learn a lot. My understanding of Beowulf has grown. (Heck, I even learned the orgin of your username, Alcuin!)

Even the supposedly 'pedantically deprecative' part on the translation of 'whale road' is enlightening and Tolkien makes a great case for the way he translates the original anglo-saxon. And you can almost hear the man grumbling "If the Beowulf author had wanted to write whale-road, he would have used 'hwælwey'!"

Incidentally, the Haeney translation does use 'whale-road' but the Crossly-Holland translation prefers 'whale-way'. Philogists! (For those interested -and because I know the translation of Beowulf's first word 'Hwæt' has often been a sparring point for Beowulf-experts- even this is translated by all three differently. Tolkien uses, 'Lo!'. Crossly-Holland goes for 'So.' and Haeney uses the more traditional 'Listen!'.) Tsssk.

You can kind of hear Tolkien through the text. When he discusses the possibility of a christian rewriting of a specific scene, he himself a Christian, clearly shows his displeasure about the modern public being potentially robbed of an original part of the text to make place for the later christian homily. Of the suspected writer Tolkien even says:

Whatever we may think of his taste -I think it, as exhibited in his signed poems, bad at worst and poor at best-[...]

If his lectures were anything like this...

Sellic Spell is short and but it's interesting as it concentrates on a tiny apparent inaccuracy in the orginal text (was Beowulf the first to attack Grendel, or where there other warriors that fought the creature on the same night before and lost before Beowulf stepped up?). It is a little more reliant on fairytale tropes as we know it. (Magical gloves to move rocks, things in threes, etc...) Couldn't IMO have been published anywhere but in this book so it's understandable why it remained unpublished until now.

I did enjoy the added Lay of Beowulf, which is a shortened version of the Beowulf poem by Tolkien in the meter of The Lady of Shalot (it probably has a proper term, but alas, I'm a poetry-neandertal). I thought it packed a punch.