I haven't decided if I really want to see it, but a local medieval lit scholar thinks the new Beowulf is both pretty good and faithful in spirit with a very long tradition.
"It is a sensible adaptation," says Lorraine Stock, who teaches medieval literature at the University of Houston. Stock, who has a Ph.D. in Medieval Studies from Cornell, specializes in films that adapt ancient texts and legends."A lot of hard-core medievalists will say, 'Oh my God, what have they done to Beowulf?' " says Stock, doing a humorous imitation of an outraged academic, "but in some ways it's exactly what the Beowulf poet did to that Scandinavian story for that Christian audience."
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"The original poem is a manuscript telling a story already an adaptation of ancient Scandinavian legends," Stock says. "They got melded together in the poem, which was transcribed about the year 1000 AD. That was already a translation of stories the bards were telling. That's what bards do, they tell stories about heroes and often embellish those stories and add to them.
"This movie is following in the tradition of all adaptations, including poetic adaptations, that retell it for (a contemporary) audience."
Even more interesting to some of us is to see the poem itself performed live by artists like Benjamin Bagby, who uses only his voice and his Anglo-Saxon harp to bring the ancient tale very much alive. We were fortunate enough to see him perform a couple of years ago and sat spellbound in front of a veritable living bard.
Posted by Alan at November 19, 2007 11:52 AM