At present I am reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1936 paper “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.” (The volume I am reading is from 1972 by Folcroft Library Editions, Folcroft, PA. Oddly, the copyright page says “Limited 100 Copies”?!?)
Originally presented in 1936 for the Sir Israel Gollancz memorial lecture, the paper is replete with insight and Tolkienism-humor, e.g., from the second paragraph – “I have, of course, read The Beowulf, as have most (but not all) of those who have criticized it.” In this lean talk, Tolkien takes a bunch of ne’er-do-well Beowulf critics to task. Tolkien’s initial thrust and parry against the teaming Beowulf censurers is presented by way of allegory.
I would express the whole industry in yet another allegory. A man inherited a field in which was an accumulation of old stone, part of an older hall. Of the old stone some had already been used in building the house in which he actually lived, not far from the old house of his fathers. Of the rest he took some and built a tower. But his friends coming perceived at once (without troubling to climb the steps) that these stones had formerly belonged to a more ancient building. So they pushed the tower over, with no little labour, in order to look for hidden carvings and inscriptions, or to discover whence the man’s distant forefathers had obtained their building material. Some suspecting a deposit of coal under the soil began to dig for it, and forgot even the stones. They all said: ‘This tower is most interesting.’ But they also said (after pushing it over): ‘What a muddle it is in!’ And even the man’s own descendants, who might have been expected to consider what he had been about, were heard to murmur: ‘He is such an odd fellow! Imagine his using these old stones just to build a nonsensical tower! Why did he not restore the old house? He had no sense of proportion.’ But from the top of that tower the man had been able to look out upon the sea.
An allegory, indeed.
In any case, The Beowulf was an early and life-long love of Tolkien, and now his literary estate is releasing his own translation of Beowulf. Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary is comprised of a translation of Beowulf constructed from three Tolkien translation-manuscripts, and the commentary is derived from Tolkien’s lecture notes over Beowulf. Tolkien’s translation, however, does not aim to be alliterative-poetic, it is only a modern/plain-prose translation. Recently I have been thumbing through Howell Chickering’s dual-language translation, and very much looking forward to reading Tolkien’s now that it is available.
