Jennifer’s Reviews > Beowulf > Status Update
Jennifer
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This is making me miss The Pillars of the Earth. Mead Hall > Kingsbridge Cathedral. Both books are so morally exacting. Virtue is paramount and character is destiny. Moral worth the only thing that leaves a permanent mark on the world. Beowulf and Tom the Builder are the ethical, selfless leaders countered by the elemental cruelty and malice of Grendel and Hamleigh. I’m having a hard time staying in Denmark!
— Mar 19, 2026 08:31PM
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Mar 19, 2026 08:34PM
Welp, I didn’t mean to imply Mead Hall is greater than Kingsbridge. Just that I can’t keep going to Kingsbridge as I’m reading. I actually prefer Pillars of the Earth.
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I always meant to read Beowulf....someday!
I'm really nerding out here, but that's exactly why I'm reading it. I've read several translations over the years. RM Liuzza lays the original old English on facing pages, which is really nice, but this is my first time reading Heaney's. Heaney makes it land most like literature sensible to a modern ear—another reason this feels so much like Follett to me. Both have that Anglo Saxon earth-bound feel. Tolkien's translation is next on my list. Heaney is a great introduction to Beowulf. He strikes a nice balance of holding enough of the Latinate/ high English vocabulary, keeping the alliteration and kennings, while giving it that tactile, earthy/Germanic percussion of Old English. I'm only halfway through, but if you want to just sit back and enjoy the story, Heaney is great.
