![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
Nice article 4.238.245.162 23:15, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
Under Translations it says "Tolkien never made a translation of his own", yet under Derivative works and contemporary influences it says that "Tolkien also made a translation of the poem, which the Tolkien Society has recently decided to publish". Like, hello! Can someone please find out the true answer and fix this?
Fixed. It has long been known in Tolkien scholarship that Tolkien translated Beowulf; his strictures against translation in his "On Translating Beowulf" essay apply only to students of the language using the translation as anything other than beginners needing a "crib". Tolkien had no problems with a translation for purely literary purposes, as his long-published translations of Sir Gawain, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo should have showed. Discussion of the translation occurs in Scull & Hammond's Reader's Guide, p. 84-85. Other errors in the text about the translation & Drout's role have been deleted or fixed. Kalimac 04:39, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Weeding of fancruft is a consistent concern for this article. Unfortunately, the characters of the Beowulf epic simply have too wide a dissemination into popular culture for a listing of all references to these characters in significant contemporary works of art or narration to be possible. There are literally hundreds of such works and characters and cases. And as for selecting only the 'important' fancruft from among them, well, I think it should be obvious how well that sort of subjective logic tends to work on Wikipedia. What needs to be chosen is a small series of references which are particularly relevant to the Beowulf poem. That is to say, reference should be significantly meaningful and important to the work itself, which is after all the topic of this article.
Presently, in many of the cases currently listed, all we have is a case of empty name-checking. This is simply inadequate. This article cannot be a list of every instance of historical name-checking derived from Beowulf any more than King Arthur can be a list of every instance of name-checking of the Arthur legend. The article is large as it is. If someone wishes to create List of references to the Beowulf epic so be it, but there is no space in such an already large article as this one for such a list. Furthermore, the current list is an almost completely arbitrary smattering of references, few of which claim to be anything more than mythic name-checking.
I therefore propose that the list here restrict itself to sources which directly elaborate on the content of the Beowulf legend, and absolutely ignore all cases of name-checking for name-checking's sake. Selection of cited works, as I say, should be based upon relevance to the Beowulf poem. As a counterexample, the article presently states
So far as I can tell, the sword Hrunting has no thematic relevance to the game, and the game has no thematic relevance to Beowulf. This is meaningless and arbitrary name-checking, for want of a name to attribute a sword, and should be rejected. It says nothing whatsoever about the subject of this article. If it belongs anywhere, it belongs in the article Hrunting.
On the other hand, the MUD "Grendel's Cave" appears genuinely to be based upon the Beowulf poem's content. Its content is topically relevant to the article, and the article's subject is topically relevant to this. This is not arbitrary name-checking, and so belongs here. -- Yst 21:26, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
This is one of the worst articles I've ever seen on Wikipedia. Virtually nothing said in here has source citations. And there's not depth whatsoever. "This article is a former featured article candidate. Please view its sub-page to see why the nomination failed." Don't need to - the article is just noise; it's blindingly obvious why the nomination failed!
Great article. I had read a recent theory that Beowulf referred to Dark Age events in England specifically North Kent. READ IT. It is written by Paul Wilkinson: http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba39/ba39feat.html#wilkinson http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1373/is_12_48/ai_53461156
-- Dumbo1 00:55, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Both the entry on Thorkelin and Beowulf (at some point stated "Icelandic scholar Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin made the first transcription of the manuscript in 1818, working under a historical research commission by the Danish government.". The sources I have says the transcription was made in 1786 (Andreas Haarder, Barry Wilmont) and published in 1815. The Royal danish library also lists this edition as "1815". Rebsamen (p. xi) states 1787!!!
Good find. In the versioning chronology provided by A Beowulf Handbook (UNP, 1998), 1815 is indeed listed as the date of the publishing of the Thorkelin manuscript(p. 341). I presume this to be correct. -- Yst 04:18, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
Would anyone be interested in my rendering the fragment from Beowulf into modern poetic English? user:sjc
I find some translation a little bit strange. The name Healfdene, for instance it othervise here at the wikipedia used as Halfdan I belive, as for Halfdan the Black. Either of the varieties should be used to establish conecquence, since its undaoubtly the same name. An alternatice would be a link to Halfdan from Healfdene. Dan Koehl 05:41 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)
It is a very archaic translation. But I would be reluctant to tinker with the import with the import from Gutenberg because of possible copyright issues. A modern rendering by someone (i.e. probably me) would resolve this. But time is the big enemy at the moment, Dan. BTW the name Halfdan is as unsatisfactory as Healfdene because it also partially conceals the meaning behind the name. user:sjc
Well, I thought the right table is supposed to be a modern transalation? Its not that important to me, and beides theres so far no particulair halfdan to link to, so it hardly matters. The meaning of the word I suppose, i half dane.
Just for my curiosity, in wich way does healfdene clearer reveal the meaning? On runstones in Sweden the enam is most often writen with the spelling half tan.
If the origon from halfdan at all comes from the name Dan, I am very sceptical to the interpretion be a half dane. Its seems like Halfdan and Dan was both used back in ancient times. Dan the arrogant is supposed to have give name to Denmark. (Danmark in Danish and Swedish) but this gives the indication the neame was used before and has its unique meaning, as halfdan.
On the other hand, if Healfdene is more correct, then I think Halfdan the Black should also be spelled in the same way.
(Not arguing with you here, maybe theres something for me to learn...) Dan Koehl 07:39 Jan 12, 2003 (UTC)
By archaic I mean it is in Victorian English, i.e. recognisable to a modern reader with mother-tongue English but with effort. It is not late 20th century English but English as it was written by scholars of a century or so ago.
I happen to read AS and I know that the word for half is healf and I know the word for Danish is (amongst other spellings) Dene. So I know immediately what is implied about the Scylding Healfdene: it is not only a nationalist slur but also an implicit slur upon his lineage and his legitimacy. But if I come across the name Halfdan in an AS text I don't quite know what to do with it. Is it an AS name whose origin is concealed? Or does it mean half a dan? I wouldn't without engaging my brain think that a dan was a dane because it it doesn't immediately correlate at all to either the AS or the modern English. It is an unfortunate bodge, in short, and this is what happens very often when anglicisation occurs. The word for Denmark in English is of course Denmark and not Danmark, although we do have the derivatives Dane and Danish, but unfortunately no Dans.....
The point about this in context however is that not only is Healfdene a Scylding, the name has more rhythmic and alliterative value than Halfdan. Let's not kill a brilliant (if dated) translation's artistic merits . user:sjc
I suppose you are right. The day theres an article about the Halfdan mentioned here, I suppose someone will find a solution for the link. I would actually be interested to know if you have more material translated, I am serching the pieces describing two ancient kings of Svitjod, Ottar and Adils, not really sure how they (or Svitjod) are called anglified. Since they are described and mentioned independantly in Snorre and Beowulf, this gives pretty good confirment about their existence. Dan Koehl 09:24 Jan 13, 2003 (UTC)
Dan, I will see what I can dig out for you but as I said previously, time is the big enemy at the moment. rgds Steve ( user:sjc)
Anyone able to translate this into perhaps non-poetic literal 21st century English also? The one on the page seems to have been written by someone who spent /far/ too much time reading Shakespeare. In parts the Old English is clearer than the translation: "Beowulf is min nama." "Beowulf is my name" not the torturous "I am Beowulf named." Or "Wille ic asecgan sunu Healfdenes" "I want to tell Halfdan's son" not "I am seeking to say to the son of Healfdene...". kudz75 01:03, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Indeed, the translation present here currently is problematic, and the page history seems to indicate it hasn't been updated to address issues it raises in an eternity. Its choice of gloss is patently incorrect in a number of places ('syrcan' is not 'harness,' it is the plural of 'syrc/serc' meaning 'mail coat' or shirt' and 'bryttan' is not 'breaker.' 'Brytan' would mean 'to break,' however, 'bryttan,' means 'bestower/giver' - they may be etymologically related, but do not share any part of their respective Old English meanings, as far as I can tell). As well, its author seems to have inserted bits of Elizabethan English at random, and the word order has been occasionally jumbled nonsensically (how the author managed to get the mess that is "Messenger, I, Hrothgar's herald!" out of the simple and perfectly intelligible SVO sentence, "Ic eom Hroðgares ar ond ombiht" is particularly hard to imagine).
I will write a semi-literal translation of this passage for the page, which as a consequence of its semi-literal nature, will not be particularly pretty, but will endeavour to retain as much as possible the original's structure and will focus on communicating the specific meaning of the original Old English vocabulary and concepts present. Unfortunately, creating grammatically coherent or, even more problematically, "graceful" modern English sentences from an Old English source while adhering to the rigours of a fairly literal translation is quite often essentially impossible. The most prominent problem posed is simply that Old English appositive noun and verb phrases, or other phrases which lack an expressed subject, or in the case of noun phrases, an adjacent verb, often translate ungrammatically into Modern English. I have retained an appositive noun phrase ("heresceafta heap") as a somewhat problematic case ("A Multitude of spears") in the Modern English despite its awkwardness simply because producing a fully idiomatic Modern English translation of the phrase would require too heavy handed an interpretive treatment for my taste. I think it's best as it is. -- Yst 14:29, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I have read the old english texts (in a few different versions, I should say) as found online, and I am struck by the similarities for which I have not yet found any "official" comments regarding this mentioned similarities of the two characters, Beowulf and Rolf Krake.
- I see an alignment of Beo, in Beowulf, as of beorh (mountain, huge rock etc.), and Wulf, as being the basic name, with the Beo-prefix added as a "nickname" of a sort. This corresponds, in my opinion, to the nickname of Rolf; Krake, perhaps in the same adversed way that the Robin Hood companion John is called Little John, although he is supposedly of great statutes and build. As is Rolf Krake, wether the term "krake" means a small being (crow) or some huge built tree or rock, both explanations which I have found to be mentioned as an explanation of the name Rolf Krake. (Accidentally, "krake" in swedish is a synonym for poorly built and weak.)
- I see the description of fighting, and loosing, to a fire-throwing dragon, and the loss of great fortunes in a funeral pyre, in Beowulf to be an adequate description of how a person is burned to death within his house, in a huge fire. This corresponds, in my opinion, very much to the story of how Rolf Krake is burnt to death over a matter of taxes and fortunes.
- The companion of Beowulf, Wiglaf, is most similar to Rolf Krakes companion Vögg, or Wig, who revenges the death of Rolf Krake by killing the brother-in-law Hjorvard who has killed Rolf.
- The description of Beowulf people as Weder Geats, to me has a very interesting association with a known name on the swedish (of today) west coast; where the island of 'Hallands Väderö', in the meaning of county Halland, Weather-island, very well might indicate some former region in Geatland - Götaland, Gothland; the Wedera Geats This, then becomes a very adequate situation given the orientation of geography, naming Hrothogars people (both) West and South-Danes, wheras Beowulf is called (both) East, and at a time, North Danes. An explanation of this, naturally, would be that the Geatland/Gothland territory at times have been incorporated in either Swiorice, or Denum - the Svea kingdom, or the Dane kingdom - whereas the people of West, East and South Gothland originally and basically consider themselves to be 'geats', or goths, or 'götar'.
Feel free to add references, links and your thoughts on this subject, email me at [ [2]]
( Wilmer Thomas) 2003 June 18th, Göteborg
- And the nouns which get chucked onto the front of the various ethnic group name compounds in the poem are usually extremely arbitrary, based largely on the need to alliterate, and only very seldom on any sort of literal context or ethnographic implications. When it's a "w" that needs to be alliterated, they're the Weather-Geats, when it's an "s" that needs to be alliterated, they're the Sea-Geats. When "Dane" needs to start with a "g," they're the Spear-Danes (gardena). When it's a "b," they're the Bright-Danes (beorhtdena), etc. -- Yst 14:15, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I am quite suprised that this alignment is so infected. For someone who approaches the issue from the perspective of Norse mythology, it seems like a straightforward alignment. There are many alignments within Norse mythology that are undisputed. However, if treated with the extreme demands for conclusive alignment that some demand in this matter, it would lead to the complete desintegration of most knowledge of Norse mythology. The Beowulf and Hrolf Kraki alignments do not only concern events, but also a host of personal names. There were 100s of Germanic names in circulation (this linguistic analysis of Proto-Norse personal names in Beowulf and Swedish rune stones[ [3].] is in Swedish but anyone can read the list of names), so the probability that the personal names (and their relationships) would be a matter of coincidence is so low so as to be insignificant. If anyone would like to compare this particular aligment with the variations within uncontested alignments, see Heoroweard, any POV is based on the scholarly works cited.-- Wiglaf 07:31, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I know it's way late, but two comments. Yes, from the perspective of Norse scholars, the parallels between the Hrolf Kraki saga and Beowulf seem remarkable, but to most Anglo-Saxonists I talk to or read, the parallels don't seems so real. Maybe they aren't, or it's because most Norse scholars know Old English, but not as many Anglo-Saxonists know Old Norse. Furthermore, the real error here seems to be equating Hrolf with Beowulf when as far as I can tell, it is Bodvarr Bjarki who has the closest parallel and seems to be the character equated with Beowulf the most often in articles. I have no idea where this idea of Hrolf being Beowulf came to be here in Wikipedia. In fact, Hrolf is in Beowulf; he's Hrothulf, lurking in Heorot. Hrothgar is actually an extremely minor character in all other sagas and stories. Hrolf/Hrothulf seems to be the really important one. Arbadihist 04:51, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Beowulf is just a rehashing of one of the oldest myths known to Humankind--that of Thor slaying Balder... Marduk slaying Tiamat (Chaos Monster)... Khranus
I found these sentences:
and replaced them with
(Bold added solely for talk page in both cases.) The difference is eliminating what may be regarded as either ambiguity, or the implication that i assume is an error, that the break falls in Judith. (That's what it says; just bcz B. is the subject of the article doesn't keep "the poem" from referring to the last poem mentioned, Judith. It's unlikely, bcz a break in Judith is not interesting in this article, and bcz the odds are good that any break would fall in the longer poem.)
If in fact it is the poem Judith that is broken between two scribes, someone who knows should eventually correct my false inference by making it read "halfway through Judith." -- Jerzy 18:27, 2004 Feb 7 (UTC)
Someone seems to have added to this a claim about the ages of the scribes, for which I am unaware of any evidence. There is plenty of evidence (in Klæber lxxxix–xci, among others) that the second scribe is significantly more accurate. So I'll be correct this, and adding the line number for the transition.
FlashSheridan
19:44, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
The 'graph
is probably trying to convey something valuable, but it is a mess. Rather than fix the parts i can infer the meaning of, to say it clearly, i've left it for someone with the expertise to decide, e.g., what is meant by "a thoroughly Christian context", and who can imagine what other theory than "the retelling of a classic Germanic tale for a Christian audience" is plausible. (But i did kill the word "contemporary", which can add nothing but confusion.)-- Jerzy 18:49, 2004 Feb 7 (UTC)
Leaving out explicit references to Christ doesn't make it not Christian. If you look closely, Beowulf is closely associated with Christ. The most obvious example is when his companions begin to think that he might be dead in the mere at the sixth hour, which is when Christ died on the cross. Arbadihist 06:29, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
There is even allegory. This is a paragraph of a paper I wrote. "Consider the character of Unferth. Much discussion about this character, in particularly his name has gained much scholarly interest. Although there are some wavering opinions, the general consensus is that his name means “mar-peace” or “not-peace.” Morton Bloomfied in his essay Beowulf a Christian Allegory: an Interpretation of Unferth” sets forth the opinion that the poets use of Unferth is in direct correlation to the traditional use of the Allegorical method, which just so happens to come from the “Christian tradition brought to England after 597” (160). Bloomfield argues that since the name Unferth occurs nowhere else in the historical or literary records of Old English or Old Norse, that it is a unique name, generated by the poet to serve a unique allegorical purpose." I also went on to explain how Bloomfied shows that even the use of Unferth in the plot is pure allegory as well, its purely Christian. The general modern consensus is that Beowulf is fundamental Christian work rather than what early scholars use to think (that it was a pagan work with just Christian words plugged in here or their.) Bryanpeterson 18:10, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Whats sad is that I had to got back to junior college for one more class and I took a literary course (my major for my bachelors). And the professor was teaching beowulf as it used to be taught, that it was a pagan work with Christian references plugged into by Christian scribes. This however is seriously an out dated view... here are some articles "Blackburn, F.A. “The Christian Coloring in the Beowulf.” Bloomfield, Morton. “Beowulf and Christian Allegory: An Interpretation of Unferth.” Cain, Christopher. “Beowulf, the Old Testament and the Regula Fidei.” McNamee, M. B. “Beowulf- An Allegory of Salvation?” Tidmarsh, Major. “A Christian Wyrd: Syncretism in Beowulf.” If some one needs fuller citation I can provide it. Bryanpeterson 18:16, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I have uploaded an image of the first page of the Beowulf manuscript: Image:Beowulf.firstpage.jpeg. It is public domain, and approximately 55k. Should it appear here? I have already used it at Medieval literature (my goal would be that all featured articles have associated images), and so I don't know if it should be duplicated. Also, the original image [ here] is much larger and more detailed....perhaps more appropriate for this page than my smaller version? Just a suggestion. Jwrosenzweig 22:03, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)
You know, we really don't cover the story at all (the article really assumes we've all read this somewhat difficult work). We shouldn't be a Cliff's Notes, but a paragraph or two of ploy synopsis really is needed, no? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:44, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I have been doing some work and added some articles on the people described in the epic. At the moment Beowulf concerns the epic itself, whereas the "person" is treated at Beowulf (character). My gut feeling is that the most common meaning of "Beowulf" is the epic, and not the person. Any opinions on the naming?-- Wiglaf 10:00, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
In the Scandinavian original of "Beowulf", the Beowulf figure was Fróði.
The name "Beowulf" is generally assumed to be a kenning for "bear", constructed from beo (bee) and wulf (wolf). This is undoubtedly the most likely meaning.
Now, my understanding of Old English is laughably poor (at best), but couldn't beowulf also be a contraction of beow (bow) and wulf (wolf) -- i.e., bow-wolf, a possible kenning for arrow, referring not just to his speed but also his "bite" (strength, powerful blow or strike of the sword)?
Old English poems often tend to make good use of double meanings. Could the name "Beowulf" have been an ideal choice because it can be interpreted in more than one positive way? -- Corvun 18:28, Feb 28, 2005 (UTC)
I can find no source for the translation of "beo" or "beow" as "bow" or anything like it. J. R. Clark Hall's A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Sweet's Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon as well as Bruce Mitchell's, Mitchell and Robinsons' and Bright's respective glossaries all list no such meaning, the four which list "beow" (Mitchell's small glossary does not) gloss "beow" as "barley" with no other possible translations. MnE "bow" is almost always "boga" in OE texts. -- Yst 04:29, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
In the section on Translations, this sentence " Frederick Rebsamen's verse translation is with alliterations and inventive compound words; it includes extreme deviations from the meaning of the Old English text." seems to be missing a word between "is" and "with". Rife? Filled? Teeming?
I have been bold and inserted "rich".— Theo (Talk) 22:33, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
"Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language. (The oldest surviving text in English is Caedmon's hymn of creation.)"
This contradicts what was written above, which states that Beowulf was written in Old English. Old English and Modern English are not mutually intelligible. They are two seperate and distinct languages. Just because one evolved from the other, and is the only surviving descendant of the other, does not make them the same language. If Italian were the only descendant of Latin, would that make them two forms of the same language? What is the support for claiming that the Old English language and the Modern English language are in fact only one language? -- Corvun 02:18, August 2, 2005 (UTC)
http://homepage.mac.com/ohkado/kenkyu/beowulf_comic.htm
I'm not sure how that formatting is done on the passage from thhe poem, but would it be possible to only have line numbers every five or ten lines, and even better,on the right hand side? At the moment they're reducing the passage's readability. Harry R 00:00, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Innaccurate. Hrunting could not pierce neither Grendel or Grendels Mother's skin, another sword did. The one forged by the giants, unless I am wrong, because this has not yet been corrected.
Right, except Grendel (I think) isn't killed by a sword at all. Beowulf tears its arm off.
But Grendel doens't die instantly from that wound. Later, when Beowulf is in the lair of the mother, he uses the ancient sword to kill Grendel, who is sitting in a daze from his wound. Arbadihist 06:16, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
"Grendel and Grendel's mother were the inspiration for the Orcs in his Ring trilogy." Sorry, this sounds a bit dubious, especially saying they were the inspiration. Is there a source for this? -- Arvind 19:03, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
They appear to have been part of the inspiration. "Orcneas" is an Old English word for "evil spirits" online Beowulf glossary, and Grendel is described as one. Orcneas is the source for Tolkein's word orc - you can do some Google searches for the two words to find the connection. Sorry to use online sources only; I don't have Klaber handy. In any event, it might be a bit much to say they were the inspiration.
There is this text from the poem: "Þanon untȳdras ealle onwōcon, eotenas and ylfe and orcnēas, swylce gīgantas, þā wið gode wunnon lange þrāge; hē him þæs lēan forgeald."
And in his letters, Tolkien describes them as the inspiration. If I have time I'll try to get that reference. Arbadihist 06:14, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Isn't calling the house's name 'ominous' a little facetious?
It certainly is - should be removed I think?
193.1.172.138 10:51, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps there should be a link to the Beowulf (computing) article next to the one to the hero... Beowulf is one of the most popular cluster systems in existance, and I think deserves a link other than thru the disambig. -- Wulf 04:21, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
I was trying to read about Beowulf, but it is to difficult to understand. I agree with the first person who wrote...this article is terrible. It told me nothing! I would never recommend it to anyone.
Good Bye! user:68.9.246.45
IP user, can you demonstrate your sources for this early dating of the poem? If you're going to include something so non-traditional in the field, you really must cite your source within the article. I've never read anything that dated it before around 650. Carl.bunderson 16:46, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
In the glossaries and translation section, the opening lines are currently rendered in the third person - "We have heard of the Spear-Danes." Someone with better OE skills than I needs to take a look at this, but isn't the grammatically-correct rendering "We Spear-Danes have heard?" That is to say, the story is being told by a Danish storyteller?
I've added the Morris/Wyatt translation of 1895 in the text, but did not add it to the bibliography, as that seemed to be limited to 20th century (et seq.) versions. I thought it appropriate due to Morris' literary standing at the time. Glacierman 05:36, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
I am doing an overhaul of Beowulf-related articles. Two of them, Hroðgar and Halga, have been submitted for peer review. Ideas and opinions are very welcome!-- Berig 09:58, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Can someone please fix the spoiler warnings? Thanks -anonymous 68.33.200.244 19:31, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
Can whoever it is that keeps cutting out things from the comics section give a reason for doing so? Antarctic Press is actually running a Beowulf comic, and the Grendel comics do exist and have some ties to the legend. What is the rationale for the cuts? Rabidwolfe 01:58, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Consequently, many people and events depicted in the epic were probably real. (quote from the article)
This is quite a statement to make without citing some supporting authority. The preceding paragraph says that the poem blurs fictional and historical elements, that many of the personalities in Beowulf appear in other Scandinavian literature, and that the poem can be placed in its cultural context thanks to archaeological discoveries. This makes it possible, if not probable, that a memory of actual persons was preserved by the poem, many of them part of the common memory of first millenium Scandinavian epic. But I think the sentence is rather too bold as it stands. -- Iacobus 06:06, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
The statment It was translated by Seamus Heaney is misleading. I've removed it. The first translation, according to Douglas Short's Annotated Bibliography, was a transcription of lines 1-19 and 53-73 by Humphrey Wanley, who misinterpreted the poem. -- Iamunknown 04:08, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
An editor has twice removed the tag from "The precise date of the manuscript is debated, but most estimates place it close to AD 1000 citation needed" with the edit summaries: "Asking for a citation attesting to the date of the Nowell Codex in an Anglo-Saxonist article is like asking for a citation attesting to the speed of light in a Physics article" and "Citing a *universal* concensus among the totality of all scholars and students in the field (i.e., no one doesn't think the MS was authored at a date proximate to 1000AD) is purposeless".
I have to strongly disagree: this is missing the point of Wikipedia's policies. First, not everyone reading Wikipedia is a student or scholar in the field. They should not be denied reliable sources because "everyone knows that". Someone might be about to write their first essay and they will be expected to cite sources. Second: if it is truly a universal consensus then the wording of the article is misleading because it suggests that there are some which do not place it close to AD 1000. Third, this is not a journal of Anglo-Saxon research with an specialist audience with a presumed set of known facts about the Anglo-Saxons, it is an encyclopedia for a general audience; wikipedia policies give as one reason for sources "to help users find additional reliable information on the topic."
Fourth, and most important, is Wikipedia's policies. Wikipedia:Verifiability says "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source. Editors should provide a reliable source for material that is challenged ..." Given this, I do not believe that a tag like this should be removed unless it is already covered.
In summary, please don't remove the tag, as I believe it is directly against Wikipedia policy. If you have a suitable source, please add it. Notinasnaid 09:36, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
But clearly the material was challenged. The presence of the tag is the challenge. Notinasnaid 14:50, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Since I'm just trying to follow policy, and so are you, I've sought clarification on what the words mean. Notinasnaid 15:00, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I am stating that the tag is the challenge. I did not add the tag. But its existence seems to be the challenge in itself. I did not place it, but can we deny that it exists? Do the editors have the right, under the policies, to ignore and delete the challenge, if we accept it exists? Notinasnaid
Well, I've been for advice on policy and, rather to my surprise, been told to ignore the policy and work for consensus instead. Well, that's good. I'd like to suggest that the wording of the sentence, The precise date of the manuscript is debated, but most estimates place it close to AD 1000. is what invited the tag in the first place. Given that Yst seems to know more about this than I ever will and does not know of any dissent, we can start by removing the "most". And if the date isn't sigificantly debated, how about The manuscript dates from close to AD 1000. Comments? Notinasnaid 19:49, 15 January 2007 (UTC) By the way, the advice was at [4], and there are some comments on the references in this article that might also be helpful. Notinasnaid 19:51, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Let's not call it a quarrel, just a spirited debate about how to make the best encyclopedia. Notinasnaid 20:13, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Beowulf's sword was named Adam. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.229.208.167 ( talk) 16:39, 30 January 2007 (UTC).
Um, obscurity? Tinker wrote a bibliography of the translations of Beowulf in 1903 which covered twenty different translations, and several paraphrases targeted at schools and children. I'd be hard pressed to consider that obscure.-- Prosfilaes 02:07, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
This article is hardly GA yet. The lead doesn't summarise the article, there aren't enough refs and the pop culture section is a trivia list, hardly discussing Beowulf's impact on modern writing. Alientraveller 19:13, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Are there any opinions regarding the use of BC vs. CE? I fall into the camp of continuing to use BC, considering the themes within the text. TopaTopa 21:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Under the heading of themes in this article, the first sentence is as follows: "The poem as we know it is a retelling of orally transmitted legends for a Christian audience." How do we know this? It makes it sound like the poem is assumed to be a literary version of an oral poem, which is not certain at all. Myself, I am almost convinced that the author(s) made it up almost out of nothing. He decided to insert his own character, Beowulf, who is mentioned nowhere else in any saga or poem or the eddas. (The main character of Beowulf the poem is of course distinct from Beowulf, the ancestor of Hrothgar.) I recognize that this is a minority view, but the way the article is structured, it sounds as "The poem as we know it is a retelling of orally transmitted legends for a Christian audience." is a fact, when so little of what we know of the poem is a fact. There is also no citation for this bold statement either. Thus, I have changed the sentence to "The poem as we know it is shot through with elements of the Norse legendarium along with Christian statements."
It might also be good to insert comments about the shift of ideas from Beowulf being a pagan poem with splashes of Christianity to a Christian poem with splashes of paganism. Arbadihist 05:18, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
1) I hope I have shown that what I did was not on the basis of a "Crackpot personal theory." In the future, I would ask that you do a little research before throwing such slander. On your user page, you state that you are a graduate student in library studies, thus I would expect more careful research before making your argument.
2) I'm not referring to such things as Liedertheorie. I'm allowing for another view that "Beowulf" may have been the work of a singular genius, who definitely knew his germanic legends, or some of them, and used them as background, but made the story up.
3) I also am under the impression that reverts should not be used as a first resort for this type of disagreement. As a dedicated Anglo-Saxonist, I was hoping that we couuld work to make some much needed improvements to this article.
Therefore, based on this elaboration, I am reverting back to my change. I hope this clarifies, and I apologize if you felt I didn't explain enough in my first statement. Arbadihist 08:08, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
Nice article 4.238.245.162 23:15, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
Under Translations it says "Tolkien never made a translation of his own", yet under Derivative works and contemporary influences it says that "Tolkien also made a translation of the poem, which the Tolkien Society has recently decided to publish". Like, hello! Can someone please find out the true answer and fix this?
Fixed. It has long been known in Tolkien scholarship that Tolkien translated Beowulf; his strictures against translation in his "On Translating Beowulf" essay apply only to students of the language using the translation as anything other than beginners needing a "crib". Tolkien had no problems with a translation for purely literary purposes, as his long-published translations of Sir Gawain, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo should have showed. Discussion of the translation occurs in Scull & Hammond's Reader's Guide, p. 84-85. Other errors in the text about the translation & Drout's role have been deleted or fixed. Kalimac 04:39, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Weeding of fancruft is a consistent concern for this article. Unfortunately, the characters of the Beowulf epic simply have too wide a dissemination into popular culture for a listing of all references to these characters in significant contemporary works of art or narration to be possible. There are literally hundreds of such works and characters and cases. And as for selecting only the 'important' fancruft from among them, well, I think it should be obvious how well that sort of subjective logic tends to work on Wikipedia. What needs to be chosen is a small series of references which are particularly relevant to the Beowulf poem. That is to say, reference should be significantly meaningful and important to the work itself, which is after all the topic of this article.
Presently, in many of the cases currently listed, all we have is a case of empty name-checking. This is simply inadequate. This article cannot be a list of every instance of historical name-checking derived from Beowulf any more than King Arthur can be a list of every instance of name-checking of the Arthur legend. The article is large as it is. If someone wishes to create List of references to the Beowulf epic so be it, but there is no space in such an already large article as this one for such a list. Furthermore, the current list is an almost completely arbitrary smattering of references, few of which claim to be anything more than mythic name-checking.
I therefore propose that the list here restrict itself to sources which directly elaborate on the content of the Beowulf legend, and absolutely ignore all cases of name-checking for name-checking's sake. Selection of cited works, as I say, should be based upon relevance to the Beowulf poem. As a counterexample, the article presently states
So far as I can tell, the sword Hrunting has no thematic relevance to the game, and the game has no thematic relevance to Beowulf. This is meaningless and arbitrary name-checking, for want of a name to attribute a sword, and should be rejected. It says nothing whatsoever about the subject of this article. If it belongs anywhere, it belongs in the article Hrunting.
On the other hand, the MUD "Grendel's Cave" appears genuinely to be based upon the Beowulf poem's content. Its content is topically relevant to the article, and the article's subject is topically relevant to this. This is not arbitrary name-checking, and so belongs here. -- Yst 21:26, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
This is one of the worst articles I've ever seen on Wikipedia. Virtually nothing said in here has source citations. And there's not depth whatsoever. "This article is a former featured article candidate. Please view its sub-page to see why the nomination failed." Don't need to - the article is just noise; it's blindingly obvious why the nomination failed!
Great article. I had read a recent theory that Beowulf referred to Dark Age events in England specifically North Kent. READ IT. It is written by Paul Wilkinson: http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba39/ba39feat.html#wilkinson http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1373/is_12_48/ai_53461156
-- Dumbo1 00:55, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Both the entry on Thorkelin and Beowulf (at some point stated "Icelandic scholar Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin made the first transcription of the manuscript in 1818, working under a historical research commission by the Danish government.". The sources I have says the transcription was made in 1786 (Andreas Haarder, Barry Wilmont) and published in 1815. The Royal danish library also lists this edition as "1815". Rebsamen (p. xi) states 1787!!!
Good find. In the versioning chronology provided by A Beowulf Handbook (UNP, 1998), 1815 is indeed listed as the date of the publishing of the Thorkelin manuscript(p. 341). I presume this to be correct. -- Yst 04:18, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
Would anyone be interested in my rendering the fragment from Beowulf into modern poetic English? user:sjc
I find some translation a little bit strange. The name Healfdene, for instance it othervise here at the wikipedia used as Halfdan I belive, as for Halfdan the Black. Either of the varieties should be used to establish conecquence, since its undaoubtly the same name. An alternatice would be a link to Halfdan from Healfdene. Dan Koehl 05:41 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)
It is a very archaic translation. But I would be reluctant to tinker with the import with the import from Gutenberg because of possible copyright issues. A modern rendering by someone (i.e. probably me) would resolve this. But time is the big enemy at the moment, Dan. BTW the name Halfdan is as unsatisfactory as Healfdene because it also partially conceals the meaning behind the name. user:sjc
Well, I thought the right table is supposed to be a modern transalation? Its not that important to me, and beides theres so far no particulair halfdan to link to, so it hardly matters. The meaning of the word I suppose, i half dane.
Just for my curiosity, in wich way does healfdene clearer reveal the meaning? On runstones in Sweden the enam is most often writen with the spelling half tan.
If the origon from halfdan at all comes from the name Dan, I am very sceptical to the interpretion be a half dane. Its seems like Halfdan and Dan was both used back in ancient times. Dan the arrogant is supposed to have give name to Denmark. (Danmark in Danish and Swedish) but this gives the indication the neame was used before and has its unique meaning, as halfdan.
On the other hand, if Healfdene is more correct, then I think Halfdan the Black should also be spelled in the same way.
(Not arguing with you here, maybe theres something for me to learn...) Dan Koehl 07:39 Jan 12, 2003 (UTC)
By archaic I mean it is in Victorian English, i.e. recognisable to a modern reader with mother-tongue English but with effort. It is not late 20th century English but English as it was written by scholars of a century or so ago.
I happen to read AS and I know that the word for half is healf and I know the word for Danish is (amongst other spellings) Dene. So I know immediately what is implied about the Scylding Healfdene: it is not only a nationalist slur but also an implicit slur upon his lineage and his legitimacy. But if I come across the name Halfdan in an AS text I don't quite know what to do with it. Is it an AS name whose origin is concealed? Or does it mean half a dan? I wouldn't without engaging my brain think that a dan was a dane because it it doesn't immediately correlate at all to either the AS or the modern English. It is an unfortunate bodge, in short, and this is what happens very often when anglicisation occurs. The word for Denmark in English is of course Denmark and not Danmark, although we do have the derivatives Dane and Danish, but unfortunately no Dans.....
The point about this in context however is that not only is Healfdene a Scylding, the name has more rhythmic and alliterative value than Halfdan. Let's not kill a brilliant (if dated) translation's artistic merits . user:sjc
I suppose you are right. The day theres an article about the Halfdan mentioned here, I suppose someone will find a solution for the link. I would actually be interested to know if you have more material translated, I am serching the pieces describing two ancient kings of Svitjod, Ottar and Adils, not really sure how they (or Svitjod) are called anglified. Since they are described and mentioned independantly in Snorre and Beowulf, this gives pretty good confirment about their existence. Dan Koehl 09:24 Jan 13, 2003 (UTC)
Dan, I will see what I can dig out for you but as I said previously, time is the big enemy at the moment. rgds Steve ( user:sjc)
Anyone able to translate this into perhaps non-poetic literal 21st century English also? The one on the page seems to have been written by someone who spent /far/ too much time reading Shakespeare. In parts the Old English is clearer than the translation: "Beowulf is min nama." "Beowulf is my name" not the torturous "I am Beowulf named." Or "Wille ic asecgan sunu Healfdenes" "I want to tell Halfdan's son" not "I am seeking to say to the son of Healfdene...". kudz75 01:03, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Indeed, the translation present here currently is problematic, and the page history seems to indicate it hasn't been updated to address issues it raises in an eternity. Its choice of gloss is patently incorrect in a number of places ('syrcan' is not 'harness,' it is the plural of 'syrc/serc' meaning 'mail coat' or shirt' and 'bryttan' is not 'breaker.' 'Brytan' would mean 'to break,' however, 'bryttan,' means 'bestower/giver' - they may be etymologically related, but do not share any part of their respective Old English meanings, as far as I can tell). As well, its author seems to have inserted bits of Elizabethan English at random, and the word order has been occasionally jumbled nonsensically (how the author managed to get the mess that is "Messenger, I, Hrothgar's herald!" out of the simple and perfectly intelligible SVO sentence, "Ic eom Hroðgares ar ond ombiht" is particularly hard to imagine).
I will write a semi-literal translation of this passage for the page, which as a consequence of its semi-literal nature, will not be particularly pretty, but will endeavour to retain as much as possible the original's structure and will focus on communicating the specific meaning of the original Old English vocabulary and concepts present. Unfortunately, creating grammatically coherent or, even more problematically, "graceful" modern English sentences from an Old English source while adhering to the rigours of a fairly literal translation is quite often essentially impossible. The most prominent problem posed is simply that Old English appositive noun and verb phrases, or other phrases which lack an expressed subject, or in the case of noun phrases, an adjacent verb, often translate ungrammatically into Modern English. I have retained an appositive noun phrase ("heresceafta heap") as a somewhat problematic case ("A Multitude of spears") in the Modern English despite its awkwardness simply because producing a fully idiomatic Modern English translation of the phrase would require too heavy handed an interpretive treatment for my taste. I think it's best as it is. -- Yst 14:29, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I have read the old english texts (in a few different versions, I should say) as found online, and I am struck by the similarities for which I have not yet found any "official" comments regarding this mentioned similarities of the two characters, Beowulf and Rolf Krake.
- I see an alignment of Beo, in Beowulf, as of beorh (mountain, huge rock etc.), and Wulf, as being the basic name, with the Beo-prefix added as a "nickname" of a sort. This corresponds, in my opinion, to the nickname of Rolf; Krake, perhaps in the same adversed way that the Robin Hood companion John is called Little John, although he is supposedly of great statutes and build. As is Rolf Krake, wether the term "krake" means a small being (crow) or some huge built tree or rock, both explanations which I have found to be mentioned as an explanation of the name Rolf Krake. (Accidentally, "krake" in swedish is a synonym for poorly built and weak.)
- I see the description of fighting, and loosing, to a fire-throwing dragon, and the loss of great fortunes in a funeral pyre, in Beowulf to be an adequate description of how a person is burned to death within his house, in a huge fire. This corresponds, in my opinion, very much to the story of how Rolf Krake is burnt to death over a matter of taxes and fortunes.
- The companion of Beowulf, Wiglaf, is most similar to Rolf Krakes companion Vögg, or Wig, who revenges the death of Rolf Krake by killing the brother-in-law Hjorvard who has killed Rolf.
- The description of Beowulf people as Weder Geats, to me has a very interesting association with a known name on the swedish (of today) west coast; where the island of 'Hallands Väderö', in the meaning of county Halland, Weather-island, very well might indicate some former region in Geatland - Götaland, Gothland; the Wedera Geats This, then becomes a very adequate situation given the orientation of geography, naming Hrothogars people (both) West and South-Danes, wheras Beowulf is called (both) East, and at a time, North Danes. An explanation of this, naturally, would be that the Geatland/Gothland territory at times have been incorporated in either Swiorice, or Denum - the Svea kingdom, or the Dane kingdom - whereas the people of West, East and South Gothland originally and basically consider themselves to be 'geats', or goths, or 'götar'.
Feel free to add references, links and your thoughts on this subject, email me at [ [2]]
( Wilmer Thomas) 2003 June 18th, Göteborg
- And the nouns which get chucked onto the front of the various ethnic group name compounds in the poem are usually extremely arbitrary, based largely on the need to alliterate, and only very seldom on any sort of literal context or ethnographic implications. When it's a "w" that needs to be alliterated, they're the Weather-Geats, when it's an "s" that needs to be alliterated, they're the Sea-Geats. When "Dane" needs to start with a "g," they're the Spear-Danes (gardena). When it's a "b," they're the Bright-Danes (beorhtdena), etc. -- Yst 14:15, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I am quite suprised that this alignment is so infected. For someone who approaches the issue from the perspective of Norse mythology, it seems like a straightforward alignment. There are many alignments within Norse mythology that are undisputed. However, if treated with the extreme demands for conclusive alignment that some demand in this matter, it would lead to the complete desintegration of most knowledge of Norse mythology. The Beowulf and Hrolf Kraki alignments do not only concern events, but also a host of personal names. There were 100s of Germanic names in circulation (this linguistic analysis of Proto-Norse personal names in Beowulf and Swedish rune stones[ [3].] is in Swedish but anyone can read the list of names), so the probability that the personal names (and their relationships) would be a matter of coincidence is so low so as to be insignificant. If anyone would like to compare this particular aligment with the variations within uncontested alignments, see Heoroweard, any POV is based on the scholarly works cited.-- Wiglaf 07:31, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I know it's way late, but two comments. Yes, from the perspective of Norse scholars, the parallels between the Hrolf Kraki saga and Beowulf seem remarkable, but to most Anglo-Saxonists I talk to or read, the parallels don't seems so real. Maybe they aren't, or it's because most Norse scholars know Old English, but not as many Anglo-Saxonists know Old Norse. Furthermore, the real error here seems to be equating Hrolf with Beowulf when as far as I can tell, it is Bodvarr Bjarki who has the closest parallel and seems to be the character equated with Beowulf the most often in articles. I have no idea where this idea of Hrolf being Beowulf came to be here in Wikipedia. In fact, Hrolf is in Beowulf; he's Hrothulf, lurking in Heorot. Hrothgar is actually an extremely minor character in all other sagas and stories. Hrolf/Hrothulf seems to be the really important one. Arbadihist 04:51, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Beowulf is just a rehashing of one of the oldest myths known to Humankind--that of Thor slaying Balder... Marduk slaying Tiamat (Chaos Monster)... Khranus
I found these sentences:
and replaced them with
(Bold added solely for talk page in both cases.) The difference is eliminating what may be regarded as either ambiguity, or the implication that i assume is an error, that the break falls in Judith. (That's what it says; just bcz B. is the subject of the article doesn't keep "the poem" from referring to the last poem mentioned, Judith. It's unlikely, bcz a break in Judith is not interesting in this article, and bcz the odds are good that any break would fall in the longer poem.)
If in fact it is the poem Judith that is broken between two scribes, someone who knows should eventually correct my false inference by making it read "halfway through Judith." -- Jerzy 18:27, 2004 Feb 7 (UTC)
Someone seems to have added to this a claim about the ages of the scribes, for which I am unaware of any evidence. There is plenty of evidence (in Klæber lxxxix–xci, among others) that the second scribe is significantly more accurate. So I'll be correct this, and adding the line number for the transition.
FlashSheridan
19:44, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
The 'graph
is probably trying to convey something valuable, but it is a mess. Rather than fix the parts i can infer the meaning of, to say it clearly, i've left it for someone with the expertise to decide, e.g., what is meant by "a thoroughly Christian context", and who can imagine what other theory than "the retelling of a classic Germanic tale for a Christian audience" is plausible. (But i did kill the word "contemporary", which can add nothing but confusion.)-- Jerzy 18:49, 2004 Feb 7 (UTC)
Leaving out explicit references to Christ doesn't make it not Christian. If you look closely, Beowulf is closely associated with Christ. The most obvious example is when his companions begin to think that he might be dead in the mere at the sixth hour, which is when Christ died on the cross. Arbadihist 06:29, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
There is even allegory. This is a paragraph of a paper I wrote. "Consider the character of Unferth. Much discussion about this character, in particularly his name has gained much scholarly interest. Although there are some wavering opinions, the general consensus is that his name means “mar-peace” or “not-peace.” Morton Bloomfied in his essay Beowulf a Christian Allegory: an Interpretation of Unferth” sets forth the opinion that the poets use of Unferth is in direct correlation to the traditional use of the Allegorical method, which just so happens to come from the “Christian tradition brought to England after 597” (160). Bloomfield argues that since the name Unferth occurs nowhere else in the historical or literary records of Old English or Old Norse, that it is a unique name, generated by the poet to serve a unique allegorical purpose." I also went on to explain how Bloomfied shows that even the use of Unferth in the plot is pure allegory as well, its purely Christian. The general modern consensus is that Beowulf is fundamental Christian work rather than what early scholars use to think (that it was a pagan work with just Christian words plugged in here or their.) Bryanpeterson 18:10, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Whats sad is that I had to got back to junior college for one more class and I took a literary course (my major for my bachelors). And the professor was teaching beowulf as it used to be taught, that it was a pagan work with Christian references plugged into by Christian scribes. This however is seriously an out dated view... here are some articles "Blackburn, F.A. “The Christian Coloring in the Beowulf.” Bloomfield, Morton. “Beowulf and Christian Allegory: An Interpretation of Unferth.” Cain, Christopher. “Beowulf, the Old Testament and the Regula Fidei.” McNamee, M. B. “Beowulf- An Allegory of Salvation?” Tidmarsh, Major. “A Christian Wyrd: Syncretism in Beowulf.” If some one needs fuller citation I can provide it. Bryanpeterson 18:16, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I have uploaded an image of the first page of the Beowulf manuscript: Image:Beowulf.firstpage.jpeg. It is public domain, and approximately 55k. Should it appear here? I have already used it at Medieval literature (my goal would be that all featured articles have associated images), and so I don't know if it should be duplicated. Also, the original image [ here] is much larger and more detailed....perhaps more appropriate for this page than my smaller version? Just a suggestion. Jwrosenzweig 22:03, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)
You know, we really don't cover the story at all (the article really assumes we've all read this somewhat difficult work). We shouldn't be a Cliff's Notes, but a paragraph or two of ploy synopsis really is needed, no? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:44, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I have been doing some work and added some articles on the people described in the epic. At the moment Beowulf concerns the epic itself, whereas the "person" is treated at Beowulf (character). My gut feeling is that the most common meaning of "Beowulf" is the epic, and not the person. Any opinions on the naming?-- Wiglaf 10:00, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
In the Scandinavian original of "Beowulf", the Beowulf figure was Fróði.
The name "Beowulf" is generally assumed to be a kenning for "bear", constructed from beo (bee) and wulf (wolf). This is undoubtedly the most likely meaning.
Now, my understanding of Old English is laughably poor (at best), but couldn't beowulf also be a contraction of beow (bow) and wulf (wolf) -- i.e., bow-wolf, a possible kenning for arrow, referring not just to his speed but also his "bite" (strength, powerful blow or strike of the sword)?
Old English poems often tend to make good use of double meanings. Could the name "Beowulf" have been an ideal choice because it can be interpreted in more than one positive way? -- Corvun 18:28, Feb 28, 2005 (UTC)
I can find no source for the translation of "beo" or "beow" as "bow" or anything like it. J. R. Clark Hall's A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Sweet's Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon as well as Bruce Mitchell's, Mitchell and Robinsons' and Bright's respective glossaries all list no such meaning, the four which list "beow" (Mitchell's small glossary does not) gloss "beow" as "barley" with no other possible translations. MnE "bow" is almost always "boga" in OE texts. -- Yst 04:29, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
In the section on Translations, this sentence " Frederick Rebsamen's verse translation is with alliterations and inventive compound words; it includes extreme deviations from the meaning of the Old English text." seems to be missing a word between "is" and "with". Rife? Filled? Teeming?
I have been bold and inserted "rich".— Theo (Talk) 22:33, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
"Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving epic poems in what is identifiable as a form of the English language. (The oldest surviving text in English is Caedmon's hymn of creation.)"
This contradicts what was written above, which states that Beowulf was written in Old English. Old English and Modern English are not mutually intelligible. They are two seperate and distinct languages. Just because one evolved from the other, and is the only surviving descendant of the other, does not make them the same language. If Italian were the only descendant of Latin, would that make them two forms of the same language? What is the support for claiming that the Old English language and the Modern English language are in fact only one language? -- Corvun 02:18, August 2, 2005 (UTC)
http://homepage.mac.com/ohkado/kenkyu/beowulf_comic.htm
I'm not sure how that formatting is done on the passage from thhe poem, but would it be possible to only have line numbers every five or ten lines, and even better,on the right hand side? At the moment they're reducing the passage's readability. Harry R 00:00, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Innaccurate. Hrunting could not pierce neither Grendel or Grendels Mother's skin, another sword did. The one forged by the giants, unless I am wrong, because this has not yet been corrected.
Right, except Grendel (I think) isn't killed by a sword at all. Beowulf tears its arm off.
But Grendel doens't die instantly from that wound. Later, when Beowulf is in the lair of the mother, he uses the ancient sword to kill Grendel, who is sitting in a daze from his wound. Arbadihist 06:16, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
"Grendel and Grendel's mother were the inspiration for the Orcs in his Ring trilogy." Sorry, this sounds a bit dubious, especially saying they were the inspiration. Is there a source for this? -- Arvind 19:03, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
They appear to have been part of the inspiration. "Orcneas" is an Old English word for "evil spirits" online Beowulf glossary, and Grendel is described as one. Orcneas is the source for Tolkein's word orc - you can do some Google searches for the two words to find the connection. Sorry to use online sources only; I don't have Klaber handy. In any event, it might be a bit much to say they were the inspiration.
There is this text from the poem: "Þanon untȳdras ealle onwōcon, eotenas and ylfe and orcnēas, swylce gīgantas, þā wið gode wunnon lange þrāge; hē him þæs lēan forgeald."
And in his letters, Tolkien describes them as the inspiration. If I have time I'll try to get that reference. Arbadihist 06:14, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Isn't calling the house's name 'ominous' a little facetious?
It certainly is - should be removed I think?
193.1.172.138 10:51, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps there should be a link to the Beowulf (computing) article next to the one to the hero... Beowulf is one of the most popular cluster systems in existance, and I think deserves a link other than thru the disambig. -- Wulf 04:21, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
I was trying to read about Beowulf, but it is to difficult to understand. I agree with the first person who wrote...this article is terrible. It told me nothing! I would never recommend it to anyone.
Good Bye! user:68.9.246.45
IP user, can you demonstrate your sources for this early dating of the poem? If you're going to include something so non-traditional in the field, you really must cite your source within the article. I've never read anything that dated it before around 650. Carl.bunderson 16:46, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
In the glossaries and translation section, the opening lines are currently rendered in the third person - "We have heard of the Spear-Danes." Someone with better OE skills than I needs to take a look at this, but isn't the grammatically-correct rendering "We Spear-Danes have heard?" That is to say, the story is being told by a Danish storyteller?
I've added the Morris/Wyatt translation of 1895 in the text, but did not add it to the bibliography, as that seemed to be limited to 20th century (et seq.) versions. I thought it appropriate due to Morris' literary standing at the time. Glacierman 05:36, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
I am doing an overhaul of Beowulf-related articles. Two of them, Hroðgar and Halga, have been submitted for peer review. Ideas and opinions are very welcome!-- Berig 09:58, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Can someone please fix the spoiler warnings? Thanks -anonymous 68.33.200.244 19:31, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
Can whoever it is that keeps cutting out things from the comics section give a reason for doing so? Antarctic Press is actually running a Beowulf comic, and the Grendel comics do exist and have some ties to the legend. What is the rationale for the cuts? Rabidwolfe 01:58, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Consequently, many people and events depicted in the epic were probably real. (quote from the article)
This is quite a statement to make without citing some supporting authority. The preceding paragraph says that the poem blurs fictional and historical elements, that many of the personalities in Beowulf appear in other Scandinavian literature, and that the poem can be placed in its cultural context thanks to archaeological discoveries. This makes it possible, if not probable, that a memory of actual persons was preserved by the poem, many of them part of the common memory of first millenium Scandinavian epic. But I think the sentence is rather too bold as it stands. -- Iacobus 06:06, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
The statment It was translated by Seamus Heaney is misleading. I've removed it. The first translation, according to Douglas Short's Annotated Bibliography, was a transcription of lines 1-19 and 53-73 by Humphrey Wanley, who misinterpreted the poem. -- Iamunknown 04:08, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
An editor has twice removed the tag from "The precise date of the manuscript is debated, but most estimates place it close to AD 1000 citation needed" with the edit summaries: "Asking for a citation attesting to the date of the Nowell Codex in an Anglo-Saxonist article is like asking for a citation attesting to the speed of light in a Physics article" and "Citing a *universal* concensus among the totality of all scholars and students in the field (i.e., no one doesn't think the MS was authored at a date proximate to 1000AD) is purposeless".
I have to strongly disagree: this is missing the point of Wikipedia's policies. First, not everyone reading Wikipedia is a student or scholar in the field. They should not be denied reliable sources because "everyone knows that". Someone might be about to write their first essay and they will be expected to cite sources. Second: if it is truly a universal consensus then the wording of the article is misleading because it suggests that there are some which do not place it close to AD 1000. Third, this is not a journal of Anglo-Saxon research with an specialist audience with a presumed set of known facts about the Anglo-Saxons, it is an encyclopedia for a general audience; wikipedia policies give as one reason for sources "to help users find additional reliable information on the topic."
Fourth, and most important, is Wikipedia's policies. Wikipedia:Verifiability says "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source. Editors should provide a reliable source for material that is challenged ..." Given this, I do not believe that a tag like this should be removed unless it is already covered.
In summary, please don't remove the tag, as I believe it is directly against Wikipedia policy. If you have a suitable source, please add it. Notinasnaid 09:36, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
But clearly the material was challenged. The presence of the tag is the challenge. Notinasnaid 14:50, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Since I'm just trying to follow policy, and so are you, I've sought clarification on what the words mean. Notinasnaid 15:00, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I am stating that the tag is the challenge. I did not add the tag. But its existence seems to be the challenge in itself. I did not place it, but can we deny that it exists? Do the editors have the right, under the policies, to ignore and delete the challenge, if we accept it exists? Notinasnaid
Well, I've been for advice on policy and, rather to my surprise, been told to ignore the policy and work for consensus instead. Well, that's good. I'd like to suggest that the wording of the sentence, The precise date of the manuscript is debated, but most estimates place it close to AD 1000. is what invited the tag in the first place. Given that Yst seems to know more about this than I ever will and does not know of any dissent, we can start by removing the "most". And if the date isn't sigificantly debated, how about The manuscript dates from close to AD 1000. Comments? Notinasnaid 19:49, 15 January 2007 (UTC) By the way, the advice was at [4], and there are some comments on the references in this article that might also be helpful. Notinasnaid 19:51, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Let's not call it a quarrel, just a spirited debate about how to make the best encyclopedia. Notinasnaid 20:13, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Beowulf's sword was named Adam. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.229.208.167 ( talk) 16:39, 30 January 2007 (UTC).
Um, obscurity? Tinker wrote a bibliography of the translations of Beowulf in 1903 which covered twenty different translations, and several paraphrases targeted at schools and children. I'd be hard pressed to consider that obscure.-- Prosfilaes 02:07, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
This article is hardly GA yet. The lead doesn't summarise the article, there aren't enough refs and the pop culture section is a trivia list, hardly discussing Beowulf's impact on modern writing. Alientraveller 19:13, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Are there any opinions regarding the use of BC vs. CE? I fall into the camp of continuing to use BC, considering the themes within the text. TopaTopa 21:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Under the heading of themes in this article, the first sentence is as follows: "The poem as we know it is a retelling of orally transmitted legends for a Christian audience." How do we know this? It makes it sound like the poem is assumed to be a literary version of an oral poem, which is not certain at all. Myself, I am almost convinced that the author(s) made it up almost out of nothing. He decided to insert his own character, Beowulf, who is mentioned nowhere else in any saga or poem or the eddas. (The main character of Beowulf the poem is of course distinct from Beowulf, the ancestor of Hrothgar.) I recognize that this is a minority view, but the way the article is structured, it sounds as "The poem as we know it is a retelling of orally transmitted legends for a Christian audience." is a fact, when so little of what we know of the poem is a fact. There is also no citation for this bold statement either. Thus, I have changed the sentence to "The poem as we know it is shot through with elements of the Norse legendarium along with Christian statements."
It might also be good to insert comments about the shift of ideas from Beowulf being a pagan poem with splashes of Christianity to a Christian poem with splashes of paganism. Arbadihist 05:18, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
1) I hope I have shown that what I did was not on the basis of a "Crackpot personal theory." In the future, I would ask that you do a little research before throwing such slander. On your user page, you state that you are a graduate student in library studies, thus I would expect more careful research before making your argument.
2) I'm not referring to such things as Liedertheorie. I'm allowing for another view that "Beowulf" may have been the work of a singular genius, who definitely knew his germanic legends, or some of them, and used them as background, but made the story up.
3) I also am under the impression that reverts should not be used as a first resort for this type of disagreement. As a dedicated Anglo-Saxonist, I was hoping that we couuld work to make some much needed improvements to this article.
Therefore, based on this elaboration, I am reverting back to my change. I hope this clarifies, and I apologize if you felt I didn't explain enough in my first statement. Arbadihist 08:08, 3 June 2007 (UTC)