Tolkien's Beowulf.

On Thu, 01 Jan 2004 03:50:33 -0800, the softrat <softrat.DeleteThis@pobox.com>
wrote:

>On Thu, 01 Jan 2004 06:11:39 GMT, Chris Schumacher
><kensu__.DeleteThis@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>I'm baffled by something. Does "Beowulf and The Critics" contain the
>>partial verse and complete prose translation that JRRT wrote?
>>I noticed it's edited by the same guy who the news articles said was
>>going to edit together the translations and notes.
>>Thanks.
>>
>> -==Kensu==-
>No.
>
>AFAIK, Tolkien never translated _Beowulf_. I think that it is a Urban
>Legend. However he did lecture about it. Some of his lectures are
>collected and edited in _Finn and Hengest_.
>

I do believe you to be correct in this. I'm certain he lectured on the
subject and wrote what Tom Shippey (author of JRR Tolkien Author of
the Century) called "the admittedly ground-breaking and field defining
essay" on the subject. In 1925 he wrote (in collaboration with
others)an english translation of Sir Gwain and the Green Knight.

In 1953 he also wrote a verse dialogs called The Homecoming of
Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son. Which obviously is drawn somewhat from
epics like Beowulf if not actually influenced directly.

Seems like this could easily lead people to believe that he had done a
translation of beowulf I do recall quite extensive mentions of Beowulf
in some of the early Letters unfortunately I can't locate my copy at
the moment to reference it.

>
>
>
>the softrat
>"LotR: You've seen the epic. Now experience the Whole Story!"
>mailto:softrat@pobox.com

--

Hmm must get round to finding a decent sig
 >> Stay informed about: Tolkien's Beowulf. 

In article <010120041714133420%Aelfwine@elvish.org>, Aelfwine.TakeThisOut@elvish.org
says...
> In article <cbm8vv0g5v9deqjhi9aqgfdahk487rjomr.TakeThisOut@4ax.com>, the softrat
> <softrat.TakeThisOut@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> > Carl, is this a real translation or merely 'working papers'?
>
> I should note that I didn't have time to study the translation, as my
> purpose was to find material relating to Tolkien's invented languages.
> So I can't say for sure how complete the translation was, but it was
> certainly a translation, not just notes or lecture material.

Somewhat OT but do you know if the UT index entry for 'Uruks' is drawn
from the rough draft index JRRT made (for LotR), about which CT says he
took many of the translations and definitions found in the UT index? Some
insist that CT simply made it up.

--
Tar-Elenion

Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.
Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.
 >> Stay informed about: Tolkien's Beowulf. 

"Andy Lee" <arl.RemoveThis@NOSPAMblueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:8r48vvobtub4pp7l1s835mbfntb40cebe5@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 01 Jan 2004 03:50:33 -0800, the softrat <softrat.RemoveThis@pobox.com>
> wrote:
>
> >On Thu, 01 Jan 2004 06:11:39 GMT, Chris Schumacher
> ><kensu__.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>I'm baffled by something. Does "Beowulf and The Critics" contain the
> >>partial verse and complete prose translation that JRRT wrote?
> >>I noticed it's edited by the same guy who the news articles said was
> >>going to edit together the translations and notes.
> >>Thanks.
> >>
> >> -==Kensu==-
> >No.
> >
> >AFAIK, Tolkien never translated _Beowulf_. I think that it is a Urban
> >Legend. However he did lecture about it. Some of his lectures are
> >collected and edited in _Finn and Hengest_.
> >

In his _JRR Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography_, (Oak Knoll, 1993, p. 297)
Wayne Hammond tells us that Tolkien did translate Beowulf, but as yet this
translation has not been published. I understand that Michael Drout is
editing Tolkien's translation, to be published in two volumes, later this
year.
In Tolkien's _Beowulf and the Critics_, ed. by Michael Drout (MRTS 2002),
Drout explains that Tolkien's lecture _Beowulf: the Monsters and the
Critics_ (1936) was a redaction of a much larger work, Beowulf and the
Critics, which Tolkien wrote in the 1930's, and probably delivered in a
series of Oxford lectures.

..
>
> In 1953 he also wrote a verse dialogs called The Homecoming of
> Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son. Which obviously is drawn somewhat from
> epics like Beowulf if not actually influenced directly.


Tolkien's _The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorthelm's Son_ is interesting in
that it includes Tolkien's only play: The piece is in three parts; Part one,
Beorhtnoth's Death, is an account of the slaying of Beorhtnoth of Essex at
the Battle of Maldon in the year 992 AD. Part two is the Homecoming proper,
ie the play, and Part three, 'Ofermod', is Tolkien's criticism of the Old
English epic poem _The Battle of Maldon_, on which his play is based.
(Hammond p.303).

Alan
 >> Stay informed about: Tolkien's Beowulf. 

"CarlF.Hostetter" <Aelfwine.RemoveThis@elvish.org> wrote in message news:<010120041714133420%Aelfwine@elvish.org>...
> In article <cbm8vv0g5v9deqjhi9aqgfdahk487rjomr.RemoveThis@4ax.com>, the softrat
> <softrat.RemoveThis@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> > Carl, is this a real translation or merely 'working papers'?
>
> I should note that I didn't have time to study the translation, as my
> purpose was to find material relating to Tolkien's invented languages.
> So I can't say for sure how complete the translation was, but it was
> certainly a translation, not just notes or lecture material.

There's an incomplete translation in alliterative verse, and a
complete translation in prose. Neither, however, was ever finished by
Tolkien to his satisfaction. As Carl says, these aren't just notes;
I've seen them myself.

Drout's edition is "on hold" -- I don't know why. Meanwhile, there's a
brief extract from the verse translation in Tolkien's preface to the
Clark Hall _Beowulf and the Finnsburg Fragment_ (a.k.a. "On
Translating _Beowulf_" in _The Monsters and the Critics and Other
Essays_), and extracts from the prose translation in _J.R.R. Tolkien:
Artist and Illustrator_ and in _The Lost Road and Other Writings_.

Wayne Hammond
 >> Stay informed about: Tolkien's Beowulf. 

In article <020120040817147430%Aelfwine@elvish.org>, Aelfwine.RemoveThis@elvish.org
says...
> In article <MPG.1a5e403e58c92c0d989836.RemoveThis@news.comcast.giganews.com>,
> Tar-Elenion <tar_elenion.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Somewhat OT but do you know if the UT index entry for 'Uruks' is drawn
> > from the rough draft index JRRT made (for LotR), about which CT says he
> > took many of the translations and definitions found in the UT index? Some
> > insist that CT simply made it up.
>
> I have no idea, other than that I see no reason to think that
> Christopher did or would simply "make it up".
>

Thank you.
The reason some think that CT made it up is that they insist /believe
that 'Uruks' and 'Uruk-hai' refer to two completly seperate groups of
beings and even that 'uruks' is a fully B.S. word, not an anglicization
at all, so that any evidence to the contrary must be some sort of error.

--
Tar-Elenion

Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.
Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.
 >> Stay informed about: Tolkien's Beowulf.