J.R.R. Tolkien discussion

When will we be starting?

Thanks!

Finally picked it up last night and read the front matter from Christopher Tolkien. I'm always grateful for C.T.'s clarity and the generosity of his details.

I read Heaney's translation when it came out and loved it. Then recently I stumbled on Ted Sherman's youtube lectures on Beowulf. He refers to Tolkien's scholarship on Beowulf quite a bit, even where he disagrees with him. Revived distant, hazy memories of my medieval lit class in college. My prof revered Tolkien as a scholar, but unlike Sherman, he would bite the head off anybody who mentioned LOTR in class.

I'm up to line 168. This is going to take a while, but the commentary is clearing up a few things for me.

Just got it from my libary, hoping to start tonight.

Just finished reading the poem and on the commentary. I'm a little disappointed in it as I thought it would talk more about the context of Beowulf instead of defining the words.

Ashley, this is just by-the-bye. There's a great website called The History of Britain, which some guy named Ted has been building. It's quite nice. He started with pre-Roman Britain and has only begun to get into the Anglo-Saxon period, so no Beowulf yet. Lots of great info, though, if you want some broader context. I do recommend the Sherman lectures, but he covers much of the same ground as the book in terms of dating Beowulf's composition, its sources, purpose and so on. Do you have any specific questions? I'll bet somebody in here knows the answers.

Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics by J.R.R. Tolkien is a good book to read. In it, he explains why he thinks Beowulf should be read as a great work of literature, not just one to be studied for its Anglo Saxon verse form and as an historical document alone. I really enjoyed reading Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary in May of this year. It is one of the finest looking books in my book collection, complete with the illustration of the coiled dragon on its front cover, drawn by J.R.R. Tolkien in 1928. My review of the book can be read here on Goodreads on the page dedicated to it.

I do kinda wish they had put Monsters/Critics in the new book. I understand the reasoning behind not including it, but it would have been nice to have it all together. And yeah, the jacket design is great.

And I goofed. HOB's creator is named Tim, not Ted.

Longhare wrote: "Ashley, this is just by-the-bye. There's a great website called The History of Britain, which some guy named Ted has been building. It's quite nice. He started with pre-Roman Britain and has only b..."

Thanks for the website Longhare,I'll have to check it out! What was everyone's thoughts on Tolkein's translation of Beowulf? I thought it was easier to read than the old english version, I read that version of Beowulf in college. I also thought he did a good job as it was pretty close to original, but some parts kinda drug out, like the historical bit when Beowulf was first feasting at Heorot.

As J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a prose translation of Beowulf, I felt while I was reading it that it was like reading an Anglo Saxon novel, so I could concentrate on the story more than I could when I read the verse translation of it by Michael Alexander and the one by Seamus Heaney. It is when Beowulf is old, the king of the Geats, and he has to face the dragon that the poem truly lifts into the world of myth and becomes moving and memorable, a great poem, as J.R.R. Tolkien said it was.

I finally got a library copy of this book. I only read parts of the book. I read Tolkien's translation of the epic poem; which was pretty difficult going for me, with such odd syntax. Then I read the "Sellic Spell" section which read much easier and faster; then I read the two Lays of Beowulf. I skipped over Christopher's commentary as I simply did not have the stamina to read it. Overall, I very much enjoyed this version, difficult though it may have been for me.