Beowulf, written during the time of Bede the Venerable, is the ultimate Anglo-Saxon epic, a "heroic-elegaic" tale of man vs monsters. Beowulf, the hero, saves the Danes from the rampaging Grendel and his monster mother and goes home, where he lives a long and happy life. Towards the conclusion of his life, though, he must face the ultimate nemesis, death, in fight with a fearsome and old dragon.“Hark! We have heard of the Spear Danes from days of yore
The kings of that people; their power and glory—
How those heroes did their noble deeds.”
Ben J. Reinhard, Academic Dean and Associate Professor at Christendom College, has produced a formal equivalent to the original text with his own magnificent and solemn style in this new verse translation. The Old English original, a critical introduction, and thorough explanatory notes that root the poem in conventional criticism and the Catholic intellectual heritage are included in addition to the translation.
The subject of many analyses, criticisms, and translations, Beowulf is nevertheless “not spent,” Reinhard notes in his introduction, because “like all great works, its message can never be exhausted.” This limitless supply of meaning is made possible by the poem's distinct personality, as defined by J. R. R. Tolkien: “The whole thing is sombre, tragic, sinister, curiously real.… It is laden with history, leading back into the dark heathen ages beyond the memory of song, but not beyond the reach of imagination.”