Remember that movie the Jazz Singer? Yeah well, I don’t either. In fact, I have to admit that I haven’t even seen it. It’s a movie from way back in the roaring 20’s which was seminal in the history of cinema, being the first movie to incorporate the voice of actors. But for all it’s worth, it fades in comparison to latter classics. Who also remembers the first YouTube video? Here is a refresher for you: a twenty second clip of a guy at the zoo. It has since become a relic, as relevant as a collection in a museum. There is no questioning its value as a stepping stone in history, but does not offer much value now.
I feel like Beowulf is more significant for its place in the English language than it is as an epic that one can enjoy and learn from nowadays. Listening to it in Old English is like listening to a Danish lecture, the old Saxon English is closer to its Danish setting and the voices of its Scandinavian cousins. Listening to it in a foreign language with a medieval harp playing is a surreal form of entertainment that’s a bit too off-kilter for me. But then again, I’m sucked in to the Tik Tok generation and the form of entertainment we digest is starkly different. I honestly cannot go through seating through the performance of Beowulf. I’d rather listen to gangster rap.
Reading it in modern English is an equally bizarre experience. I am honestly annoyed for the simplicity of the story and the puffed up egos of the characters. A significant proportion of the book is other characters praising how good Beowulf is blah blah blah, oh my goodness all the dames will all suck your dick and all the other thanes dicks are small compared to yours. Beowulf doesn’t do himself any favours by boasting about his own achievements. Yeah, yeah, we get it. You killed Grendel, Grendel’s annoying mum and some dragon that’s actually just avenging a thief going to his den. I mean, I’d probably go as apeshit if someone comes into my house and started to eat the cheese from my fridge.
I don’t question Beowulf’s history in English literature. I picked up the Penguin Orange edition which I don’t think was translated by Seamus Heaney, which for a lot of critics seem to be the best adaptation of the epic in terms of essence. But I doubt that I will re-explore Beowulf again at a later time. I probably have read almost as much in the way of articles explaining why Beowulf is so great, and none of them really sold me. Honour and bravery? Sure. But Homer did it way better in The Iliad and The Odyssey a full millennia before.
For me, reading Beowulf was a grating experience as it is confusing with all the relationships that need to be explained and figured out: whose sons belong to which dad’s cousins and grandads; the way that Beowulf is out on a pedestal every single chance the epic catches a break; and there are other stories and epics that come before and after which are much, much superior and influential.
