Beowulf
Stephen Miller
Yale University Press
Fiction, Fantasy/Poetry
Themes: Classics, Cross-Genre, Dragons, Epics, Religious Themes
****
Description
Rediscovered in the 19th century after hundreds of years in obscurity, the Scandinavian epic poem Beowulf tells a classic story of
heroism and loyalty and the sometimes kind, sometimes cruel whims of divine fate. When the monstrous Grendel preys upon the shining great hall
of the good king Hrothgar of the Danes, slaughtering his people in their sleep, the brave warrior Beowulf of the Geats comes to fulfill the
pact of alliance between the nations and stop the threat, the first of three beastly encounters that will earn him eternal glory - and end in
his doom.
This rendering is presented by Stephen Mitchell.
Review
On an academic level, it's amazing that this story has survived at all, given its sheer age and at least one brush with destruction. On a
storytelling level, allowing for the style of the day (which, while lyrical, can't help but feel stiff and overly formal and reliant on cultural
assumptions and conventions that are no longer common), the tale remains compelling, a clear ancestor to modern epic fantasies with its
larger-than-life hero (protected, when needed, by a certain amount of plot armor dressed up as "God's will" or "fate") and monstrous foes and
backstories of tangled clan relations and rivalries and treasures from lost eras. The whole, even in moments of triumph, has a certain air of
melancholy and loss, how peace and prosperity and alliances will inevitably fall back into blood-rivalries and chaos once the heroes and the
good rulers can no longer defend the land from evil's forces, within and without. There is even a hint of sadness for the death of the dragon
that ends Beowulf, despite its demonic origins and the destruction its rage wrought.
The author notes in the introduction are interesting, though I personally prefer such things at the end, even on classics: don't assume the
reader knows everything (or remembers it if they've been exposed to it before), especially if you're doing your own translation, and let them
refresh their memories before diving into trivia and analyses and such. But apparently that's just me, because every classic out there seems
intent on front-loading the story with all the notes that would have much more relevance after a refresher... In any event, I enjoyed it for
what it was.