A review by robdabear
Beowulf by Anonymous
5.0
I was driven to read this by both curiosity and my childish obsession with old fairy tale type stories such as this grown into more, well, sophisticated reading, I guess you could say. At the beginning of the school year, my English class read a long excerpt, mostly from the battle scenes with Grendel and Grendel's mother, but, going to an all-male, Catholic high school, the only thing the teacher focused on was how many random references there were to God, and how this story, or poem, rather, was probably a medieval commercial attempt to get people to follow the Church.
Needless to say, that was quite detracting, so I decided to go read the full poem. I was not disappointed. Full of epic battles, heroic talk, and those awkward in-between times that are kind of, well emotionally moving, "Beowulf" is definitely a poem to be read. The battles described between several formidable foes that only Beowulf, strongest of the Geats, could conquer, have an excellent buildup and a surprisingly exciting description. As mentioned, there are occasionally powerful moments of in between, from the time Beowulf departs the land of Danes (Denmark), to his final dying words. The poem describes in an epic fashion the adventurous and exciting life and death of the ultimate Hero, Beowulf.
Something to note, this particular translation is very easy to understand and keeps you engaged the full length of the poem. Plus, if you have enough heart and motivation to read the introduction, you might even get a little pre-excited for an already awesome poem. Anyway, yeah, awesome. Way better to just read it than listen to my teacher's opinion.
Needless to say, that was quite detracting, so I decided to go read the full poem. I was not disappointed. Full of epic battles, heroic talk, and those awkward in-between times that are kind of, well emotionally moving, "Beowulf" is definitely a poem to be read. The battles described between several formidable foes that only Beowulf, strongest of the Geats, could conquer, have an excellent buildup and a surprisingly exciting description. As mentioned, there are occasionally powerful moments of in between, from the time Beowulf departs the land of Danes (Denmark), to his final dying words. The poem describes in an epic fashion the adventurous and exciting life and death of the ultimate Hero, Beowulf.
Something to note, this particular translation is very easy to understand and keeps you engaged the full length of the poem. Plus, if you have enough heart and motivation to read the introduction, you might even get a little pre-excited for an already awesome poem. Anyway, yeah, awesome. Way better to just read it than listen to my teacher's opinion.