I will never tire of this promotional still featuring Grendel’s hot mother with heels from the 2007 Beowulf film. Or in other words – phwoah! Well, he’ll certainly slay something

(6) BEOWULF:

SEAMUS HEANEY – A NEW VERSE TRANSLATION (1999)

The most enduring mythic character – along with antagonists Grendel and his mother (with the subsequent dragon tending to be overlooked for that more intriguing mother and son duo) – from “the oldest surviving work of fiction in the English language, written sometime between 700 and 1000 AD”.

Indeed it’s so old – how old is it? Older than yo momma! – “that the language it’s written in is barely recognizable as English” and it is more correctly described as Old English.

Like the Iliad and Odyssey earlier in these special mentions, it is an epic poem, but in Beowulf’s case it is “in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend”. The story, set in pagan Scandinavia, is reasonably well known, at least in outline, and is in an effective three-part structure that perhaps has added to its enduring appeal.

Beowulf, a “hero of the Geats” (in southern Sweden), “comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes” (once again gloomy Denmark pops up in classic literature), “whose mead hall Heorot has been under attack by the monster Grendel for twelve years”. In the first part, Beowulf faces off with Grendel, tearing off his arm and slaying him. In the second, Beowulf faces off against Grendel’s monstrous mother out for vengeance and slays her too. Yass hero, slay! Although he slays her in a very different sense in the 2007 film adaptation – not surprisingly given she appears as a golden form of her voice actress Angelina Jolie, complete with high heels! In the third, Beowulf, now a king in his elderly years, faces off and defeats a dragon, but “is mortally wounded in the battle”.

And now, in a posthumous fourth act, Beowulf wins special mention as subject for my books of mythology – reflecting its status as one of the most translated works of Old English literature (in poetry and prose) as well as one of the most adapted and interpreted works of English literature in general. Not bad for a poem over a millennium in age, even going on a millennium and a half.

One such translation is my keynote book for this special mention, the “new verse translation” by Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet and playwright Seamus Heaney. It was widely acclaimed by critics, albeit not universally – perhaps not surprisingly as no less than J.R.R. Tolkien wrote on the difficulty of translating Beowulf in an essay (“On translating Beowulf”).

On the subject of J.R.R. Tolkien, here’s a shoutout to him as an enduring influence on adapting or interpreting Beowulf through his study, in lecture or essay, as well as Beowulf as an enduring influence on Tolkien (“Beowulf is among my most valued sources”) – and through him on modern literary fantasy.

You might know Beowulf’s influence on Tolkien and modern literary fantasy through a little book Tolkien wrote called The Lord of the Rings. Although personally I tend to see more of the direct overlap through The Hobbit – with Bilbo as Beowulf, Gollum as Grendel, and Smaug as, well, the dragon. Sadly, no Grendel’s mother though.