Beowulf rises again

WHEN THE anonymous scribe of an Old English manuscript first committed the story of Beowulf to paper, he could never have imagined its contemporary iteration in such various forms as rap, the graphic novel and digitally-enhanced film. The work of the anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet is variously dated to somewhere between the 8th and 11th centuries, making Beowulf one of the earliest surviving examples of a vernacular literature in Anglo-Saxon culture.

It is the English equivalent of Homer's Odysseyor Virgil's Aeneid. And yet the characters and adventures of the Greek and Roman epic poems are far better known than those of the Beowulflegend. Think of Achilles, Paris and Helen of Troy; Hector and Dido. Even if you don't know the stories, you have probably heard of the names at least.

But the names of Beowulf’s aides and adversaries do not exactly trip off the tongue: Herod, Grendel, Hrothgar.

Despite its icy Scandinavian setting, the legend of Beowulfis far closer to modern English and Irish culture than its Greek epic counterparts. The adventures of the Danish and Swedish protagonists draw our attention to the Germanic origins of Anglo-Saxon culture, while folklorists have traced the story's origins to the tribal cycles of Irish myth.

Unlike the work of Homer and Virgil, which was preserved in various original and adapted forms, Beowulfsurvived only in a single manuscript. That was almost destroyed in a fire in 1731, before finally being transcribed for posterity.

It remained largely unknown until JRR Tolkien published what remains the most important critical study of the poem in the 1930s, Beowulf: The Monsters and The Critics.

Readers of The Hobbitand The Lord of the Ringstrilogy will easily spot Beowulf's influence on the fantastical landscape of Middle Earth, with its population of warrior heroes, cave-dwelling savages and dragons. Tolkien's unforgettable orcs – which he described in correspondence while writing the books as "squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned . . . the least lovely Mongol-types" – are thought to have drawn their name from orc-neas, the Anglo-Saxon word used to describe the monster Grendel's origins.

Beowulfbelongs to what is known in epic poetry as the two troll tradition: a hero battles against two trollish adversaries – in this case the fearsome Grendel and his grieving mother – before finally succumbing to the wrath of a dragon, who confirms the hero's fate by ensuring his heroic death and therefore his immortality.

Because the creatures he battles are supernatural, a warrior’s traditional tools are redundant. It is by brute strength and a magical sword that Beowulf succeeds in restoring peace to Denmark.

The dragon slays him when he succumbs to the infirmity of old age. The poem ends with Beowulf’s burial in his native Geatland on a cliff overlooking the sea. According to the legend, the treasure of the dragon – which is slain by Beowulf’s loyal thanes as he lies dying – is buried alongside him.

Although it is widely accepted that Beowulf is a work of mythical rather than historical origin, various archaeological excavations in Sweden in the past 100 years have suggested the existence of a powerful warrior hero contemporary to the poem’s setting.

For centuries the lack of decent translations into standard English meant that Beowulf existed only as an academic exercise for students of Old English in universities.

Since Tolkien's celebration of the book and his subsequent popularisation of its themes in his own tales of fantasy, however, Beowulfhas enjoyed new popularity particularly in the latter half of the 20th century. There have been translations by celebrated poets such as Seamus Heaney, and adaptations in popular forms, such as John Gardner's 1971 novel Grendel,which tells the story from the monster's point of view.

It is very popular across all media when it comes to fantasy tales, from animation and the graphic novel to TV programmes such as Xena: Warrior Princessand the books of Michael Crichton and Neil Gaiman.

At the same time, however, The poem is used often as a reference to the impenetrability of intellectual culture as in, for example, Woody Allen's Annie Halland the American soap The Gilmore Girls, in which it is referred to as unreadable.

New York fringe theatre company Banana Bag and Bodice bring a stage adaptation of Beowulf to the Kilkenny Arts Festival this weekend. The show acknowledges the legend's impossible legacy in its title: Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage.

The company have titled their stage performance a "songplay", in the style of the song cycles of the ancient storytelling traditions from which Beowulfderives, although their live music version is less dependent on the accompaniment of classical lyres than a frenetic live jazz score.

Introduced by academics bickering over the tale’s origins and distinctive patterns, the performance quickly gives way to monstrous chaos as Beowulf and his adversaries invade the stage.

More cabaret cartoon than serious representation, it has been touring internationally since 2008 – a remarkable life for a shoestring production and a remarkable new life for the Scandinavian hero.

Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage

opens at the Set Theatre tonight at 7pm as part of the Kilkenny Arts Festival. It runs until Sunday, with a free taster at The Parade at 3.30pm tomorrow

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BEOWULF(2007)

Directed by Robert Zemeckis, the screen adaptation featured a leathery Ray Winstone as the eponymous hero and Angelina Jolie as Grendel’s seductive mother. Using innovative motion-capture performance technology, the film prioritised spectacle over storytelling, but for some critics it took so many liberties with the material as to be almost a satire of the original poem.

The screenplay was written by Neil Gaiman, who has long been fascinated by the tale. He wrote a verse version entitled Bay Wolfin 1998, while in 2006 his novella The Monarch of the Glenfeatured contemporary versions of characters from the poem.

BEOWULF: A NEW TRANSLATION(1999)

When Seamus Heaney's forthright translation of Beowulfwas finally published in 1999, after more than a decade of working and reworking, it was widely celebrated for its clarity and the way it respected the poem's Anglo-Saxon origins without letting the narrative lose momentum. On Beowulf's death, for example, Heaney wrote:

It is always better/To avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning./For every one of us, living in this world/Means waiting for our end. Let whoever can/Win glory before death./ When a warrior is gone,/That will be his best and only bulwark.

BEOWULF THE MUSICAL(VARIOUS)

Who would have thought an ancient epic poem would provide such fertile inspiration for musical theatre? Stage adaptations of Beowulf have resolutely revolved around music. No less than three rock operas based on the story have appeared in the past 30 years. Julie Taymor (of the musical Spiderman: Turn Off the Darknotoriety) staged a more conventional opera in 2006 that gave Beowulf's adversary Grendel the title role.