Summary
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the epic poem Beowulf, one of the masterpieces of Anglo-Saxon literature. Composed in the early Middle Ages by an anonymous poet, the work tells the story of a Scandinavian hero whose feats include battles with the fearsome monster Grendel and a fire-breathing dragon. It survives in a single manuscript dating from around 1000 AD, and was almost completely unknown until its rediscovery in the nineteenth century. Since then it has been translated into modern English by writers including William Morris, JRR Tolkien and Seamus Heaney, and inspired poems, novels and films.
With:
Laura Ashe Associate Professor in English at the University of Oxford and Fellow of Worcester College
Clare Lees Professor of Medieval English Literature and History of the Language at King's College London
Andy Orchard Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford
Producer: Thomas Morris.
Transcript
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| 0:45.6 | Scandinavia a great hero traveled across the sea in order to fight a monster's |
| 0:49.8 | creature which had been terrorizing the people of Denmark. Having defeated it, he then fought |
| 0:54.9 | a great battle with its mother in her underwater lair. And later, 50 years later, engaged in a |
| 1:00.4 | jewel with a fire-breathing dragon. He came out victorious but suffered fatal wounds. |
| 1:05.0 | Such is the story of Beowulf, the earliest and one of the greatest works of English literature. |
| 1:10.0 | Written down in Anglo-Saxon by an anonymous scribe around a thousand years ago, though probably |
| 1:14.3 | composed much earlier. It was virtually unknown until the 19th century when the first modern edition |
| 1:19.5 | was made in 1815. It's a thrilling tale and a fascinating insight into the heroic culture of the |
| 1:25.0 | warrior peoples of the early Christian Europe and it's inspired writers from William Morris to |
... |
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