Beowulf

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.

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Laura Ashe 11 episodes
  Associate Professor in English at the University of Oxford and Fellow of Worcester College
• Clare Lees 2 episodes
  Professor of Medieval English Literature and History of the Language at King's College London
• Andy Orchard 2 episodes
  Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford

Reading list

• The Beowulf Reader
  Peter S. Baker (ed.) Google Books →
• A Beowulf Handbook
  R. E. Bjork and J. D. Niles Google Books →
• Klaeber's Beowulf
  R. E. Bjork, R. D. Fulk and J. D. Niles (eds.) Google Books →
• The Beowulf Manuscript
  R. D. Fulk (ed.) Google Books →
• Interpretations of Beowulf: A Critical Anthology
  R. D. Fulk Google Books →
• The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature
  Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge (eds.) Google Books →
• Beowulf
  Seamus Heaney (trans.) Google Books →
• Rereading Beowulf
  E. B. Irving Google Books →
• Medieval Masculinities: Regarding Men in the Middle Ages
  Clare A. Lees (ed.) Google Books →
• The Cambridge History of Early Medieval English Literature
  Clare A. Lees (ed.) Google Books →
• Beowulf: Facing Page Translation
  R. M. Liuzza (trans) Google Books →
• Beowulf
  Edwin Morgan Google Books →
• Beowulf and Lejre
  J. D. Niles Google Books →
• A Critical Companion to Beowulf
  Andy Orchard Google Books →
• Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf Manuscript
  Andy Orchard Google Books →
• Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary
  J. R. R. Tolkien and C. Tolkien Google Books →

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Programme ID: b0542xt7

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0542xt7

Auto-category: 820 (English & Old English literatures)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello, in Dark Age Scandinavia, a great hero travelled across the sea in order to fight a monstrous creature which had been terrorising the people of Denmark.