Beowulf

[asunshin]

There's the new CGI Beowulf movie... I haven't seen it but I started reading a translation of the original poem. I wonder if anyone around here would have any insight into the meaning of the poem, whether it is more than just a myth.

 

[Petey of Lone Tree]

There's the new CGI Beowulf movie... I haven't seen it but I started reading a translation of the original poem. I wonder if anyone around here would have any insight into the meaning of the poem, whether it is more than just a myth.

You might try GoogleSearching at _http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=pub-0924455471996742&q=Harty+Beowulf
From the first "hit" http://www.britarch.ac.uk/BA/ba39/ba39feat.html

It is possible, however, that Beowulf's foreign adventure was to southern England - to the Isle of Harty and its surrounding area in Kent; and that, far from being a work of pure fiction, the poem in fact preserves a memory of Germanic raids in south-eastern England in the 5th and 6th centuries.

 

[the rabbit]

I have a version of this film with Christopher Lambert playing the main role, and the film is amazing in my opinion.I wont give the plot away , though it does look a little like things of a diffirent dimension going on. Well worth getting hold of.

 

[bedower]

I haven't seen the film yet, but I read the book years ago. Knowing what I know now, I'd say that there is definitely an interdimensional narrative in there. All 'myths' seem to have this in common.

 

[yamez]

Definitely an interdimensional narrative. The latest movie shows the cycle of conflict and war by the intervention and seduction of "other worldly powers".

Memorable quote, "We men are the monsters now, The time of heroes is dead, The Christ God has killed it. Leaving human kind with weeping martyrs, fear and shame.."

Much more, watch the movie, _ttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0442933/

 

[PepperFritz]

Definitely an interdimensional narrative. The latest movie shows the cycle of conflict and war by the intervention and seduction of "other worldly powers".

Memorable quote, "We men are the monsters now, The time of heroes is dead, The Christ God has killed it. Leaving human kind with weeping martyrs, fear and shame.."

It's important not to confuse the movie with the original poem; the line above (and the idea behind it), for instance, appears nowhere in the poem.

The earliest written version of Beowulf that we have would have been composed and/or transcribed at a time when England had been "Christianized", but it is very much a "pagan" work with "pagan" characters and themes. The conversion from Pagan beliefs to Christian ones was a very slow and gradual process over several centuries. While the poem contains references to the Old Testament, there are no references to Jesus, Christ, or the New Testament. Some scholars argue that Beowulf is a "Christ-like" figure and that the author was influenced by Christian ideas; others argue that the poem is steeped in "pagan" religious ideas that were later "appropriated" by the growing Christian religion. Ultimately, the meaning and nature of the poem is very uncertain.

If anyone is looking for a good, accessible modern-English translation of Beowulf, I highly recommend "Beowulf: A New Verse Translation" by Seamus Heaney, which features the original Anglo-Saxon verses side-by-side with the modern translation.