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Beowulf Resources

The story of Beowulf is a story that has lasted over 1, 000 years. It is the story of a hero as he faces epic challenges in his life. It has lasted a thousand years because it strikes at the heart of what being human is all about. You can follow along with Beowulf as he faces the beasts and the challenges through the complete span of his life. And you can get it in the format or style of your choosing. Because the story is so universal it has been interpreted in many different ways from animation to graphic novel to scholarly analysis. (Even Tolkien has done quite a lot of work with Beowulf) There are many items available both in print and in film and they all have a unique interpretation.

Here are some quick links to specific beowulf resources for the upcoming movie: The New Beowulf movie starring Anthony Hopkins and Angelina Jolie - The Internet Movie Database page about the new Beowulf Movie - The Beowulf podcast with interviews of the stars and crew - The Official Beowulf Movie Site At the bottom of this page I also have some great resources like the complete work in audio for you to download as a zip file or the complete first chapter that you can click on and listen to right now.

New Beowulf Clips - I have assembled a page of Beowulf Movie clips that you can watch and they include "Grendel Attacks Mead Hall", "Dragon Attacks Castle", "Meet the Water Demon", and a fan mix to the sound track of an Exodus tune. See the Beowulf Clips Here

What is my favorite Clip? There is a clip that I really love because it really speaks to the epic fantasy sensibility of the story of Beowulf and it seems to be captured real well by this clip. Here's a quote by Beowulf: "We swam for five days neck and neck. I was conserving my strength for the final stretch when this storm blew up. And with it came Sea Monsters." Just freaking great! I Love it!

 

 

Beowulf and Grendel

Beowulf & Grendel (2005)

Amazon.com
The otherworldly landscape of Iceland lends an appropriate touch of dark fantasy to this modern retelling of Beowulf , the oldest epic poem in the English language. Gerard Butler ( The Phantom of the Opera ) brings the right balance of physicality and world-weariness as the Swedish hero Beowulf, who travels to Denmark to fight the monstrous troll Grendel (Icelandic superstar Ignvar Sigurdsson), which has been plaguing the house of King Hrothgar (Stellan Skarsgård, buried under a mound of prosthetic hair). However, what transpires is not a battle between good and evil, but a convoluted mystery of sorts, with Beowulf playing the detective who discovers that his foe is more human than monster, and Hrothgar less wronged innocent than catalyst for his own downfall. Director Sturla Gunnarsson succeeds in pulling this legendary story from the dust of academics by contemporizing the dialogue (Andrew Rai Berzins has an excellent ear for hard-bitten palaver), and his visuals are nothing less than striking, but the film attempts to be both monster movie and melancholy drama, while never quite satisfying the requirements of either genre. Regardless, the quality cast (which includes Sarah Polley from Dawn of the Dead as a sharp-tongued witch with a connection to Grendel) and some well-handled action sequences should hold viewers' attention even when the unnecessarily complex plot does not. --Paul Gaita

Beowulf with Christoper Lambert

Beowulf (1999)

Christopher Lambert (MORTAL KOMBAT, HIGHLANDER) stars in this futuristic update of the classic poem written in 900 AD and set in a world of supernatural evil and inexplicable danger! Torn from a legend whose roots are buried in the mists of time, Beowulf is half man -- half god. Living in a techno-futile world of the future, a medieval land where technology's secrets are locked away in a mute past, Beowulf fights his way through a besieging army and into a mysterious, ominous castle on the edge of nowhere to face an evil within ... a beastly spawn of man and demon named Grendel. Now he must fight to the death in order to quell the raging violence hidden deep in his own bedeviled soul!

Beowulf and the Anglo Saxons

Beowulf and the Anglo-Saxons

Miraculously preserved over the centuries, its artistic importance was unrecognized until an essay by J. R. R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings) revealed its unity and multi-dimensional structure. Beowulf is now regarded as the most important manuscript the Anglo-Saxons have handed down to us, of immense linguistic as well as poetic value.

This program sets out to trace the origins of the tribes that brought this epic into being, the war-like Norsemen from Sweden, Denmark and Germany who were to conquer and settle regions of a more clement and fertile island that would become known as England, named after the tribe of the Angles. Using 3-D animation, location footage, archive materials and interviews, the Beowulf epic is examined in the light of the civilization that created it. It investigates their religious beliefs as well as their everyday life, and suggests that, old as the poem is, it may have roots in an even more ancient fertility cult.

Beowulf Books


Beowulf by Seamus Heaney

Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (Bilingual Edition)

There are endless pleasures in Heaney's analysis, but readers should head straight for the poem and then to the prose. (Some will also take advantage of the dual-language edition and do some linguistic teasing out of their own.) The epic's outlines seem simple, depicting Beowulf's three key battles with the scaliest brutes in all of art: Grendel, Grendel's mother (who's in a suitably monstrous snit after her son's dismemberment and death), and then, 50 years later, a gold-hoarding dragon "threatening the night sky / with streamers of fire." Along the way, however, we are treated to flashes back and forward and to a world view in which a thane's allegiance to his lord and to God is absolute. In the first fight, the man from Geatland must travel to Denmark to take on the "shadow-stalker" terrorizing Heorot Hall.

Beowulf a New Telling

Beowulf: A New Telling

This is a rewrite and a new telling of the story of Beowulf. Just as the title says: "A New Telling" So if you want to read and experience the story of Beowulf as it was written this is not the book for you. But if you are familiar with the story of Beowulf and want to see a new angle then this might be the perfect choice for you.

 

 

Beowulf for Oral Telling

Beowulf: A New Translation for Oral Delivery

The story of Beowulf was no doubt one that started first as an oral telling. This was possibly what happened to it for the 300 years between when it was believed to have been started and when it was put down on paper. Are you looking for a version that you can read aloud and capture some of that same spirit and tradition of oral storytelling? This might be the perfect version for you to get.

 

 

Lot's More and Unique Beowulf Stuff and Resources

The New Movie:

Scholarly stuff and other formats