HarperCollins Beowulf, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Hardback, J. R. R. Tolkien, Edited by Christopher Tolkien
1316 ratings
TO EXPLORE MORE
Price: £75.00
Brand: HarperCollins
Description: The translation of Beowulf by J.R.R. Tolkien was an early work, very distinctive in its mode, completed in 1926: he returned to it later to make hasty corrections, but seems never to have considered its publication. HarperCollins Beowulf, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Hardback, J. R. R. Tolkien, Edited by Christopher Tolkien - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: Harper Collins
Product ID: 9780007590070
Delivery cost: Spend £20 and get free shipping
Dimensions: 149x228mm
Keywords: grendel,dragon,hrothgar,shield lands,viking,smaug,heorot,anglo saxon,hobbit,return
ISBN: 9780007590070
My website utilises affiliate links when you click my 'Get the best deal now' buttons. If you buy something through one of these links, I may earn a little commission, at no extra cost to you.
I have relationships with many of the top online retailers (purchasing, shipping and returns will be handled directly by them) which enables me to offer the best deal online for the HarperCollins Beowulf, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Hardback, J. R. R. Tolkien, Edited by Christopher Tolkien and many other similar products - which will appear below, to enhance your online shopping experience.
For even more great deals on HarperCollins Books, click the link.
Author: David Eden
Rating: 5
Review: If you are a long standing Tolkien reader like myself then you will undoubtedly get around to reading this. Beowulf was a wellspring of Tolkien's imagination and a work that deeply concerned him as a scholar of Anglo-Saxon. The northern and Anglo-Saxon heroic ethos of the poem inspired important aspects of middle-earth and the reader will recognise some passages as having inspired episodes in the Lord of the Rings. However, this is neither an easy or very readable translation. It is a prose translation with archaic and rather stiff language. Tolkien never published it which suggests that he was either unhappy with it and wanted to do further work to it (which he never got around to finishing, as is all too typical with Tolkien) or that he wrote it as a crib and an aid to further study. The best thing is Tolkien's illuminating commentary (which sadly does not cover the entire poem but only the first half which was set in the Oxford syllabus) and the accompanying poem Sellic Spell, an imaginative recreation of the folk tale Tolkien assumed must have lain behind Beowulf. If you have never read Beowulf, don't make Tolkien's translation your first reading. I recommend first reading Tolkiens magisterial essays on the poem - "Beowulf - the Monsters and the Critics" and "On Translating Beowulf" - both of which are reprinted in the easily available collection of essays "The Monsters and the Critics". That should whet your appetite for the poem. Then read a good modern verse translation - I like the one by Seamus Heaney. Then some background reading on the poem and the age would be useful - I recommend Tom Shippey's recent small book, "Beowulf and the North before the Vikings". This will give you the background to appreciate Tolkien's version and get the most from the commentary. Despite my reservations about the readability of Tolkien's translation, this book is essential for any lover of Tolkien or Beowulf.
Author: Jon
Rating: 2
Review: I have to admit I struggled with this and gave up on it fairly quickly. I'm fascinated with the Beowulf tale, and thought that a translation by Tolkien would be the perfect way to approach the text. Unfortunately, I found it a really clunky, uninspiring read. There are copious notes on the text which would make this a good text book for anyone studying this for exams, but in my opinion it's not a book for reading for fun.
