Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary is a prose translation of the early medieval epic poem "Beowulf" from Old English to modern English language. Translated by J. R. R. Tolkien from 1920 to 1926, it was edited by Tolkien's son Christopher and published posthumously in May 2014 by HarperCollins. In the poem, Beowulf, a hero of the Geats in Scandinavia, comes to the aid of Hroðgar, the king of the Danes, whose mead hall Heorot has been under attack by a monster known as Grendel. After Beowulf slays him, Grendel's mother attacks the hall and is
Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics it down "to look for hidden carvings and inscriptions". Tolkien quotes at length what the scholar W. P. Ker thought of "Beowulf", namely that "there is nothing much in the story", and that "the great beauty, the real value, of "Beowulf" is in its dignity of style". Tolkien notes that Ker's opinion had been a powerful influence in favour of a paradoxical contrast between the poem's supposed defect in speaking of monsters, and (in Tolkien's words) its agreed "dignity, loftiness in converse, and well-wrought finish". Tolkien cites other critics, such as Raymond Wilson Chambers and Ritchie Girvan, who objected to