J.R.R. Tolkien's Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary will be published world-wide on 22nd May 2014 (19.03.14 by Pieter Collier) - Comments



In a world rights deal, the Tolkien Estate has signed with HarperCollins to publish for the first time Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary by J.R.R. Tolkien. This is truly exciting news! Not only do we get Tolkien's translation of Beowulf and commentary by J.R.R. Tolkien but it will also include "Sellic Spell", an unpublished short story by J.R.R. Tolkien, re-creating the (lost) folk-tale underlying the Norse Hrólfs saga kraka and Tolkien's prose work that was to serve as the background for Beowulf. The original manuscript is held by the Bodleian Library and will now be published for the very first time.



This is the first book by J.R.R. Tolkien since the internationally bestselling The Fall of Arthur. Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary will be published by HarperCollins on 22nd May 2014 and in the United States by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary by J.R.R. Tolkien

In a world rights deal, the Tolkien Estate has signed with HarperCollins to publish for the first time Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary by J.R.R. Tolkien. This new book has been edited by Christopher Tolkien, who comments:



The translation of Beowulf by J.R.R. Tolkien was an early work, very distinctive in its mode, completed in 1926: he returned to it later to make hasty corrections, but seems never to have considered its publication. This edition is twofold, for there exists an illuminating commentary on the text of the poem by the translator himself, in the written form of a series of lectures given at Oxford in the 1930s; and from these lectures a substantial selection has been made, to form also a commentary on the translation in this book.



From his creative attention to detail in these lectures there arises a sense of the immediacy and clarity of his vision. It is as if he entered into the imagined past: standing beside Beowulf and his men shaking out their mail-shirts as they beached their ship on the coast of Denmark, listening to the rising anger of Beowulf at the taunting of Unferth, or looking up in amazement at Grendels terrible hand set under the roof of Heorot.



But the commentary in this book includes also much from those lectures in which, while always anchored in the text, he expressed his wider perceptions. He looks closely at the dragon that would slay Beowulf snuffling in baffled rage and injured greed when he discovers the theft of the cup; but he rebuts the notion that this is a mere treasure story, just another dragon tale. He turns to the lines that tell of the burying of the golden things long ago, and observes that it is the feeling for the treasure itself, this sad history that raises it to another level. The whole thing is sombre, tragic, sinister, curiously real. The treasure is not just some lucky wealth that will enable the finder to have a good time, or marry the princess. It is laden with history, leading back into the dark heathen ages beyond the memory of song, but not beyond the reach of imagination.



This edition is twofold, for there exists an illuminating commentary on the text of the poem by the translator himself, in the written form of a series of lectures given at Oxford in the 1930s; and from these lectures a substantial selection has been made, to form also a commentary on the translation in this book.



From his creative attention to detail in these lectures there arises a sense of the immediacy and clarity of his vision. It is as if he entered into the imagined past: standing beside Beowulf and his men shaking out their mail-shirts as they beached their ship on the coast of Denmark, listening to the rising anger of Beowulf at the taunting of Unferth, or looking up in amazement at Grendels terrible hand set under the roof of Heorot.



But the commentary in this book includes also much from those lectures in which, while always anchored in the text, he expressed his wider perceptions. He looks closely at the dragon that would slay Beowulf snuffling in baffled rage and injured greed when he discovers the theft of the cup; but he rebuts the notion that this is a mere treasure story, just another dragon tale. He turns to the lines that tell of the burying of the golden things long ago, and observes that it is the feeling for the treasure itself, this sad history that raises it to another level. The whole thing is sombre, tragic, sinister, curiously real. The treasure is not just some lucky wealth that will enable the finder to have a good time, or marry the princess. It is laden with history, leading back into the dark heathen ages beyond the memory of song, but not beyond the reach of imagination.



Sellic spell, a marvellous tale, is a story written by Tolkien suggesting what might have been the form and style of an Old English folk-tale of Beowulf, in which there was no association with the historical legends of the Northern kingdoms.

Title: Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, together with Sellic Spell

Author: J. R. R. Tolkien



Editor: Christopher Tolkien



Publisher: HarperCollins



Publication Date: 22 May 2014



Type: Hardcover, 448 pages

ISBN-10: 0007590067

ISBN-13: 978-0007590063 Title: Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, together with Sellic Spell

Author: J. R. R. Tolkien



Editor: Christopher Tolkien



Publisher: HarperCollins



Publication Date: 22 May 2014



Type: Slipcased deluxe edition, 448 pages

ISBN-10: 0007590075

ISBN-13: 978-0007590070

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