- BEOWULF AND COMMENTARY JRR TOLKIEN EBOOK FREE HOW TO
- BEOWULF AND COMMENTARY JRR TOLKIEN EBOOK FREE PROFESSIONAL
BEOWULF AND COMMENTARY JRR TOLKIEN EBOOK FREE HOW TO
It concentrates primarily on two things: (1) how certain words or passages should be construed, and (2) how to understand the poem in context of the culture in which it was written. The commentary is humongous, several times the size of the translation. It maintains a great deal of the syntax and poetic effects of the original (so far as I can tell), but avoids unnecessary use of obscure words, seeking the plain modern-English sense of the poetry. At that level, I am unqualified to judge it.
BEOWULF AND COMMENTARY JRR TOLKIEN EBOOK FREE PROFESSIONAL
Even so, it is likely to have some (perhaps significant) effect on Tolkien's (posthumous) professional reputation. This is not an "edition." It is a prose translation, with commentary, and, well, ancillary matter. He was reputed to be "the" Beowulf scholar of his generation, but never published an "edition" (though he wrote ancillary matter for others'). Īs the posthumous publication of everything publishable by JRRT continues, we come to what - in another world - would have cemented or destroyed his professional reputation had it been published by him, within his lifetime. Telander.įor more reviews, check out the BookBanter site. Nevertheless, Tolkien’s translation of Beowulf is a very welcome one that will be enjoyed by many and likely taught and studied in future medieval and Old English classes to come. He uses an older language of “doths” and “thines” because of the time he is writing in, but also to give a sense of age to the poem, which can be a helping or a hindrance for the reader. With the description and vocabulary, Tolkien does a great job of making the reader feel as if they are there at Heorot with Beowulf and Hrothgar and the comitatus. Finally, the great author even penned his own poem (in both modern and Old English) that acts as a precursor to “Beowulf” as a sort of fairytale written in the same style, but not within the history.Ĭompared to Seamus Heaney’s very well known and popular translation of the same poem, Tolkien goes for a much more literal adaptation, where some of the moving alliteration is perhaps lost, but the true sense of the poem and the meaning the author or authors were intending is possibly better comprehended. Included are also lectures and lecture notes Tolkien gave on the epic poem. The book features notes on how Tolkien translated specific words and stanzas with plenty of additional notes. Christopher Tolkien presents this ideal translation from Tolkien, and then includes his father’s vast commentary painstakingly collected and organized. Over the ensuing years and decades he continued to make changes and updates and lectured greatly on the epic alliterative poem. Tolkien completed his first translation of “Beowulf” in 1926, but he was by no means done with the poem. Tolkien also wrote a translation to the famous epic Old English poem “Beowulf.” Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary edited by his son, Christopher Tolkien, reveals this translation in its entirety for the first time, and so much more. In addition to creating the first fantasy epic, inventing a complete and insanely, thoroughly detailed world, and even making up its own language and alphabet, as well as teaching for decades, the great J.