Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics give it a powerful effect. He rebuts suggestions that the poem is an epic or exciting narrative, likening it instead to a strong masonry structure built of blocks that fit together. He points out that the poem's theme is a serious one, mortality, and that the poem is in two parts: the first on Beowulf as a young man, defeating Grendel and his mother; the second on Beowulf in old age, going to his death fighting the dragon. The work has been praised by critics including the poet and "Beowulf" translator Seamus Heaney. Michael D. C. Drout called it the
Beowulf (hero) attested to a monk from Durham and literally means "bee wolf" in Northumbrian. The 11th century English "Domesday Book" contains a recorded instance of the name "Beulf". A scholar named Sarrazin also suggested that the name "Beowulf" was derived from a mistranslation of "Böðvarr" where -"varr" was interpreted as "vargr" meaning "wolf". However, this etymology was questioned by Sophus Bugge, who instead suggested that the personage Böðvarr Bjarki was derived from Beowulf. In 2005, Andy Orchard theorized an etymology on the basis of the common Old Norse name "Þórólfr" (which literally translates to "Thor Wolf"), stating in parallel that a