Posted on 04/18/2019 6:48:28 AM PDT by C19fan
Only one person created the monster.
That’s according to a team of researchers at Harvard, Dartmouth, and elsewhere, who determined the epic poem “Beowulf,” a staple of literature classes the world over, was written by a sole author more than a millennium ago.
The findings of the team, led by Madison Krieger, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, and Joseph Dexter, a Harvard PhD who’s now a Neukom fellow at Dartmouth College, were published April 8 in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, Harvard said in a statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonglobe.com ...
Thanks. Interesting.
“Don’t take any class where you have to read Beowulf” -
Woody Allen in ‘Annie Hall’. In spite of any personal problems, Mr. Allen hit the nail on the head in this case.
Without Beowulf, no Chaucer or even Shakespeare.
only saw the one with angelina jolie... nice.
I read it every couple years. Marvelous work. Will read Tolkien’s translation soon; have CDs of a reading of the original text.
I know we studied it in HS but for the life of me, I can’t remember one thing about it.
I must have just daydreamed those classes away. Right up there with “Omnia Gallia in tres...blah...blah...blah”
I should have gone to Brooklyn Tech!
Or Tolkien
I like Heaney translation.
I had a high school English teacher who could read Beowulf in the original Old English, and recite chunks of it from memory in Old English as well. She was of the old school.
Oh, of course, that must be true.
You wonder how many people who are enthralled by “Game of Thrones” would read Beowulf or at least appreciate the foundation that the popular culture that so amuses them sits. Then again Beowulf was written by a dead, white European and anyone who gets caught reading it, risks the academic gulag.
That version was well done, but changed the story unnecessarily.
Tolkien notes that more or less in his famous essay...
I have recently been reflecting on Beofulf. And Rocky, especially now that we have two awesome installments of the next generation in Creed and Creed 2.
I’d like to write an article about why Rocky is important (it is) and call it American Beowulf.
I believe there are some who think - not sure how they would know this - but there are some who think that the artist who wrote the poem out in long hand, is actually the poet as well.
I have no earthly idea if that is true, but I like the thought...
Yup. But as long as there was a Virgil, there was a Dante and all is well.
Nuts! It’s just as easy to say that without William the Conquerer there is no Chaucer and no Shakespeare.
“Don’t take any class where you have to read Beowulf” -
Beowulf, two thumbs up!
A great warrior in an epic battle!
Yes, the monster was ‘proof against iron! yet Beowulf prevailed. Barehanded.
Also “Grendel”, by John Gardner, worth the time.
I like Seamus Haney’s translation best. I think it brings us closest to the original dramatic effect of Beowulf, taking into account that we have no way of relating exactly to its original audience.
I had a high school English teacher who could read Beowulf in the original Old English
Most impressive!
In high school no less!
I hope you enjoyed the time and took full advantage of such a resource.
The old English of Beowulf is impenetrable.
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