As leaves begin to fall and the mountains grow blue in the early dusk, I have been reading a new translation of Beowulf, an Anglo Saxon epic poem recounting the defeat of several monsters by the poem’s titular hero. Written in Old English towards the end of the first millennium, scholars have often debated whether or not Christianity influenced this result of a seemingly pagan poetic tradition.
Peter Ramey’s new translation of the ancient epic carefully reveals the philosophical complexities of what might initially seem a barbaric tale. The Word-Hoard Beowulf (Angelico Press, 2023) aims at recovering the wild beauty of the original Old English while revealing that the “barbaric” Norse culture out of which it arose was filled with complex concepts of honour, bravery and heroism. The Beowulf poet takes this as his basis, developing a sophisticated web of connections between his pagan roots to Christianity.
