Beowulf

Of Monsters and Shmoopers.

  • Course Length: 3 weeks
  • Course Type: Short Course
  • Category:
    • English
    • Literature
    • High School

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Beowulf vs. Grendel: it's a tale as old as time. Well, it's a tale as old as somewhere between the 8th and 11th centuries—still pretty impressive.

You probably know Beowulf as a monster story, but this epic poem is way more than just blood and guts. Beneath all the armor, there's a story that influenced pretty much every Western work that came after it. Go ahead and dive in.

P.S. Take this course on its own or combine it with our other literature units to create one monster of a curriculum.


Here's a sneak peek at a video from the course. BYOP (bring your own popcorn).


Unit Breakdown

1 Beowulf - Beowulf

Of Monsters and Shmoopers.


Sample Lesson - Introduction

Lesson 1.02: Lost in Translation

Beowulf starts like this:

So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by
and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.
We have heard of those princes' heroic campaigns.
(Heaney ll. 1-3)

Or actually, maybe it starts like this:

Listen! We—of the Spear-Danes          in the days of yore,
of those clan-kings—    heard of their glory.
how those nobles      performed courageous deeds.
(Slade ll. 1-3)

But it might also go something like this:

LO, praise the prowess of people-kings
of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped,
we have heard, and what honor the athelings won!
(Gummere ll. 1-3)
A golden gilded mirror.
Mirror, mirror on the wall / Who's the fairest Beowulf of them all? (Source)

So which is it?

Well, that depends on whose translation of the poem you're reading: each translation is just one interpretation of the poem. That's how it's possible to get three wildly different versions of even the first three lines. So yeah... imagine how many differences you'll see between translations of this three thousand line poem.

But wait a second. How come the smarty-pants scholars who study this stuff for a living can't come to some agreement about how to translate the foundational epic of English literature?

Head on over to the first reading for some answers.

 
 

Sample Lesson - Reading

Reading 1.1.02a: Translation Nation

Apparently all the tweed and monocles in the land still can't get a bunch of scholars to agree on a translation. To figure out why, let's look at just one Old English word from the first three lines:

þrym

The second translator has it as "glory." It can also mean force, power, and might. Maybe that's why the third translator calls it "prowess." But wait: it can also mean "a host, great body of people, a force, multitude." Is that why the first translator mentions "heroic campaigns"? Yeah, this is getting confusing.

The word the translator chooses depends a lot on her best judgment about what the poem is actually saying. But she also has to consider other factors:

  • What mood does she want to create? 
  • Does she want to preserve the sound of the original poetry—which in Anglo-Saxon includes a particular pattern of emphases and lots of alliteration
  • Or does she want to emphasize the literal meaning of the poem over anything else, no matter what poetic features get lost? 
  • Should she focus on authenticity (what readers then would have understood) or accessibility (what readers now will understand)?

As you can see, there's way more that goes into a translation than just figuring out what the words mean. That means you'll read a different Beowulf every time you read a different translation.


Sample Lesson - Reading

Reading 1.1.02b: Shmoop on Diction and Tone

Before we jump into Beowulf, let's hear from the man who translated the edition we'll be reading: Seamus Heaney, winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. As you can imagine, Heaney was kind of a big deal even before he won the Nobel Prize, and he was approached way back in the 1980s to translate Beowulf. Long story short, it took him twenty years to do it, but his translation is, in our humble opinion, the best out there. You'll see what we mean in a minute.

First, grab your edition of the book and read Heaney's introduction to Beowulf. It's kind of long and scholarly, but the key points to take away are:

  • He tried to make the language accessible to modern readers. 
  • He tried to stay as true to the original as possible.

We haven't read any Old English yet, so you're probably like, "Umm, yeah, that's great, Seamus Heaney, but how hard can early English be?"

Fair point.

To start you off, we're going to read the short poem "The Seafarer", which is available in side-by-side translation here (and which some of you may have previewed in Lesson 1's activity). It's a poem about—you guessed it—seafaring.

Take time comparing the Old English and the modern translation of the poem. Do any of those words look like you'd expect them to look? Yeah…we didn't so. That's because Old English hadn't been influenced by French or the Romance Languages yet and didn't have the cognates we all know and love. Instead, it had "thorns," which are these pointy looking symbols: þ. They stand for "th." (We can sort of see it…)

Our point? Over the millennia, the English language has changed so much, there are now multiple interpretations of every single line of Beowulf. When you're comparing poems (and yes, comparing multiple translations of a single poem counts), it helps to have some lit analysis vocabulary in your back pocket. So empty those pockets and make room for some terms.

Now go ahead and read Shmoop's entire literature glossary.

Okay, not really. We mean, if you want to read the entire thing at some point, knock yourself out. It's a pretty good read. But for this lesson, we'll just ask you to focus on two definitions—and keep "The Seafarer" in mind while reading them:


Sample Lesson - Reading

Reading 1.1.02c: Beowulf (Lines 1 – 63)

Beowulf doesn't start with Beowulf. It doesn't even start with Hrothgar, the king Beowulf travels across the sea to help.

Instead, it starts with Hrothgar's great-grandfather, Shield (who, based on his name alone, is a force to be reckoned with). It's kind of like in Genesis when we get all those "so-and-so begat so-and-so, who begat so-and-so" lists.

As you read, here are a few things to chew on. No need to write anything down, but keep these thoughts in mind because they'll come in handy later on:

  • What's the effect of starting the poem with the great grandfather? Why might Hrothgar's lineage have mattered to the poem's Anglo-Saxon audience?
  • The first 63 lines of Beowulf do more than just establish a lineage. They also set up the themes that are important throughout the poem. As you read, be on the lookout for what the first 63 lines have to say about kingship. What makes a good king?
  • Finally, pay attention to the overall tone created by Heaney's diction. See? We told you those literary analysis terms would come in handy.

Now go ahead and read lines 1-63 of the poem in Heaney's translation. Oh, and one last thing: if you want the Shmoop scoop on these lines, check out this page.


Sample Lesson - Activity

Activity 1.02a: Through a Glass Darkly

Prepare to enter the Beowulf funhouse. We're sending you off to read two (count 'em—two!) translators' interpretations of the first sixty-three lines of Beowulf.

On your first read-through (yep, there will be more than one), try to put your finger on the overall tone the translator is going for. Stately and elegant? Dark and broody? You be the judge.

Here are the two translations; read the first sixty-three lines of each.

  • Seamus Heaney's 1999 Translation. Oh yeah. That thing. The one you already own, and have already read…you've got this.
  • Benjamin Slade's 2002 Translation. You'll find it here. (P.S. If you're interested in seeing how this translator made his decisions, read his short note on the translation.)

Now it's time for a second read-through.

This time, choose one five-to-eight-line passage where each translator's choices create a very different tone.

Remember, since diction creates tone, that means you're looking for places where the translators made very different vocabulary choices.

(Believe us, they won't be hard to find. In fact, the real challenge will be narrowing down your options.)

  1. Jot down your passage choices here (you can just input the line numbers).

  2. Compare and contrast the overall tone of these two passages. What is the difference in tone, and which specific word choices account for the differences between their tones? How do the translators begin the poem, and what differences are there in content and syntax between the versions?

    For example, Heaney's version doesn't use any punctuation other than the period, whereas the other versions use em-dashes and commas. How does this affect the meaning and sense of the poem?

    A demonstration? Sure. We could write something like:

    The Slade translation has a stately, elegant tone. We see this in the translator's use of words like "stately" and "elegant." In contrast, the Heaney translation has a whimsical tone: In place of "stately" and "elegant," Heaney uses "highfalutin'" and "grand."

    (And yes, we totally just made that up. You've been warned.)

    Give us a short paragraph. Three to five sentences should do it.

  3. Overall, which translation do you prefer? Why? Give us two to three sentences.


Sample Lesson - Activity

  1. Who founded the Spear-Danes' ruling house?

  2. What does a work of literature's tone convey?

  3. How do writers create tone?

  4. When you're analyzing a work of literature's diction, what are you looking for?

  5. What happens to Shield Sheafson's body after he dies?