How long is the Old English poem Beowulf?
Beowulf consists of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is contained in a single manuscript known as the Nowell Codex, now housed in the British Library under the designation Cotton Vitellius A.XV.
Questions about Beowulf
Short answers, pulled from the story.
When was Beowulf written and who wrote it?
The author is anonymous; scholars refer to the unknown writer as the Beowulf poet. The surviving manuscript dates to between AD 975 and 1025, but scholarly debate places the poem’s composition anywhere from the 8th century to the early 11th century, with many scholars favoring a date in the first half of the 8th century.
What happens to Beowulf at the end of the poem?
Beowulf dies from wounds sustained in his battle with a dragon at Earnanæs, fifty years after his famous fights with Grendel and Grendel’s mother. His people cremate his body on a great pyre in Geatland and build a barrow visible from the sea in his memory.
How was the Beowulf manuscript damaged?
A fire at Ashburnham House in London in 1731 charred the manuscript’s margins and destroyed around a quarter of the manuscripts in Sir Robert Cotton’s collection. The Beowulf manuscript survived but lost letters along its edges, and parts have continued to crumble since then.
How many translations of Beowulf exist?
By 2020, the Beowulf’s Afterlives Bibliographic Database listed some 688 translations and other versions of the poem. Beowulf has been translated into at least 38 languages. The first verses were translated into modern English by Sharon Turner in 1805.
Is Beowulf a Christian or pagan poem?
Beowulf occupies an ambiguous middle ground. The characters are Germanic pagans set in 5th and 6th-century Scandinavia, yet the poem was composed and transcribed in a Christianised England. Christ is never mentioned by name, and all biblical references in the poem are drawn from the Old Testament. Scholars remain divided on whether the Christian elements were added to an originally pagan text or whether the pagan elements were deliberate archaising by a Christian author.