Just for reference, reading Beowulf or the Odyssey in public will get you some rather strange looks. Even if “in public” happens to be on campus.
We’re very much into the epic poems in my Mythology Literature class. So far, we’ve read some Greek myths, The Odyssey, and Beowulf. Up next is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Dante’s Inferno after that.
I won’t say I didn’t like Beowulf, but our translation wasn’t that great (note to self: find the Seamus Heaney version), and I felt like I didn’t really get into it that well. And reading it in just three class periods made it feel like we were just skimming the top of the word pile.
It’s an interesting story, about the Danes and the Geats (Swedish) and a monster Grendel and his mother. Beowulf manages to kill both, and goes back to rule his own kingdom. After 50 years, a dragon has woken up and killing people, so Beowulf goes and kills it.
The general theme of the poem is reciprocity. Do something for other people, and they’ll do stuff for you. It’s the same theme as the movie “Chicago,” which we watched parts of last year, when we read parts of Beowulf in early British literature.
Are you tired of Beowulf yet? I am. I’m glad we’re done, even though I know I’ll probably have to read this poem a few times more before I finish school. After all, it is the first known epic poem in English, which is a huge deal.
So, old English? Check. Middle English is up next. I have a feeling I’ll be reading Sir Gawain out loud, to make comprehension easier on my brain.
- “Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year,” From Under the Cork Tree: Fall Out Boy
Oooh, I adore Beowolf. I think what I liked about it (and of course wrote a paper about, since that’s the only way I’d remember this) is that it was written down oral story, so the old method of repeating everything 3 times so people would understand it, kind of backfires in reading a written version of it. Anyways. My deep thoughts on Beowolf.