A Brief Bibliography on Beowulf
Mord Hrutsson the Green (Steven P. Blowney)

This list is not an attempt to create a comprehensive list of resources on Beowulf. Such a list would be much, much longer. Rather this list is designed to help you get started on any study of the poem. Many of these works are found in my own ever expanding library, and yet many more can be found in the Literature Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia. I thank the department staff for their help.

Translations, texts, and facsimiles

Alexander, Michael. Beowulf. A Verse Translation. New York: Penguin Books. 1973. This is the translation used in so many introductory Medieval Literature courses. I used mine throughout my college years and my copy shows it. The work has the advantage of being a cheap, reasonable translation that is readily available. But, it is not the best translation. Found in my collection.

________(ed.). Beowulf. New York: Penguin Books. 1995. A glossed, edited text, and an inexpensive one at that, thank God. This book has a short bibliography and a glossary of names. Found in my collection.

Chickering, Howell D. Jr. Beowulf. Translated with an Introduction and Commentary. New York: Doubleday, Anchor Books. 1977. Translation and text all in one book. Translation is on one page; the text is on the opposite. Background and commentary provided is extensive, but seems to be basic. Bibliography is also provided. This is one of those works to be used by student who are only just familiar with Anglo-Saxon; it is called in the translation business "a pony." Found in my collection.

Crossley-Holland, Kevin. Beowulf. A New Translation. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1968. And a new translation this was too. This work basically broke new ground by showing the influences of new scholarship. Found in the Free Library.

Jack, G. Beowulf . A Student Edition. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press. 1994. A Glossed and edited text of the poem. Bibliography provided. Found in the Free Library.

Heaney, Seamus. Beowulf. A New Verse Translation. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. 2000. The publication of this translation caused quite a stir among critics; Heaney is, after all, a world class poet and winner of the 1995 noble prize for literature. I found the poet's translation a worthy one, if a bit wordy.

Lehmann, Ruth P.M. Beowulf. An Imitative Translation. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. 1988. A favorite. Beyond the spiffy eye-catching cover, the text of the translation really tries to preserve the spirit of the poem. A good read; occasionally a good shout, too. Glossary of names and a table of genealogies. Found in my personal collection, and probably owned by the Free Library.

Pearson, Lucien Dean. Beowulf. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1965. One of the myriad scholarly translations. Found in the Free Library.

Raffel, Burton. Beowulf. A New Translation with an Introduction. Winnipeg, Canada: Mentor Books. 1963. I must admit that I bought this book because Robert P. Creed wrote the afterward commentary. Creed is a Beowulf scholar who you simply can not pass up. He has great praise for Raffel's work. Found in my collection.

Rebsamen, Frederick. Beowulf. A Verse Translation. New York: HarperCollins. 1991. This is one of my favorite translations of the poem. Rebsamen's work tries to stay true to the poetic mechanics that is so necessary to make Beowulf work. Found in my collection and in the Free Library.

Swanton, Michael. Beowulf. New York: Barnes and Noble. 1978. Text and translation. Found in the Free Library.

Tuso, Joseph. Beowulf. New York: W.W. Norton and Company. 1975. A Norton Critical edition. The translation is a little awkward, but this work also includes useful discussions of criticism and background. This book is a good place to begin any study of the poem. The Literature Department of the Free Library owns two copies. That, alone, should tell you something.

Wright, David. Beowulf. A Prose Translation. New York: Penguin Books. 1957. Beowulf the book; this translation makes no attempt to see the work as a poem. Short discussion of the poem and Sutton Hoo. Glossary of names and genealogical table included. Found in my collection.

Zupitza, Julius. Beowulf Reproduced in Facsimile from the Unique Manuscript British Museum MS. Cotton Vitellus A . XV. London: Oxford University Press. 1882, republished 1959. Published for the Early English Text Society (E.E.T.S.), Original Series No. 245. The only facsimile of the manuscript of the poem in book form that I have been able to find. The book is owned by the Free Library, but is not kept in the Literature Department. Rather, this work is kept in the reserve stacks.

Criticism and background

Andrews, S.O. Postscript on Beowulf. New York: Russell and Russell. 1948. Reprinted 1969. The metrical mechanics of Beowulf. A knowledge of Old English is required with this book.

Bjork, Robert E. and John D. Niles. A Beowulf Handbook. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. 1997. Everything you always wanted to know about Beowulf scholarship. The subject of each chapter is presented in a chronological order of scholarship. This book also probably has the best explanation of Old English metrics I've ever read.
With its extensive bibliography, I can not recommend this book enough as a reference work for the beginner or veteran. It is in my personal collection and the Free Library's.

Brodeur, Arthur Gilchrist. The Art of Beowulf. Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1971. Considered the one of the books on the mechanics of the poem. A must read. Found in the Free Library.

Cable, Thomas. The Meter and Melody of Beowulf. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. 1974. A long discussion of the metrical mechanics of Beowulf. Found in the Free Library.

Chambers, R.W. Beowulf: An Introduction to the Study of the Poem with a Discussion of the Stories of Offa and Finn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 3rd edition, 1959. Very simply this book is a must read because it has all the criticism about Beowulf collected in one source. Found in the Free Library.

Clark, George. Beowulf. Boston: Twayne Publishers. 1990. Background and criticism of the poem. Found in the Free Library.

Farrell, R.T. Beowulf Swedes and Geats. London: University College for the Viking Society for Northern Research. 1972. An analysis of the poem based upon an understanding of who the Swedes and Geats were in the Early Middle Ages. Based heavily upon archaeology, this is an interesting analysis, but it is not for anyone unfamiliar with the Vendel Period. Found in my personal collection.

Fry, Donald K. The Beowulf Poet. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. 1968. A collection of important essays, including:

"The Artistry of Beowulf " Donald K Fry.
"Beowulf : The Monsters and the Critics" J.R.R. Tolkien.
"The Style and Structure of Beowulf Joan Bloomfield.
" Beowulf." Richard Wilbur (a poem).
" Beowulf and Christian Allegory: An Interpretation of Unferth." Morton W. Bloomfield.
"The Dramatic Audience in Beowulf." R.M. Luminiansky.
"Oral-Formulaic Character of Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry" Francis P Magoun.
"Beowulf and Archaeology" Rosemary Camp.
"The Making of an Anglo-Saxon Poem" Robert P. Creed.
"Point of View and Design for Terror in Beowulf" Alain Renior.
"Classics Revisited--IV: Beowulf" Kenneth Rexroth.

This collection can be found in both my collection and the Free Library.

Garmonsay, G.N. and J. Simpson. Beowulf and its Analogies. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co. Inc. 1969. This is a series of essays that discusses the culture and characters of the poem. Discussion of archaeology by H. R. Ellis-Davidson. Found in the Free Library.

Grivan, Ritchie. Beowulf and the Seventh Century. London: Methuen and Co. LTD. 1935, 1971 (reprint). A cultural linguistic analysis of the poem. Found in the Free Library.

Hill, John M. The Cultural World in Beowulf. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 1995. An up-dated cultural analysis of the poem. Found in the Free Library.

Hudson, Marc. Beowulf a Translation and Commentary. Lewisburg, Pennsylvania: Bucknell University Press. 1990. The art and mechanics of translating the poem. Found in the Free Library.

Irving, Edward B. A Reading of Beowulf. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. 1968. This is one of those books you read after you've read the poem. Irving provides a basic framework for understanding Beowulf. Found in the Free Library and my collection.

________. Introduction to Beowulf. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc. 1969. An introduction to criticism of the poem. This work is for the novice after having read the poem. Found in the Free Library.

Nicholson, Lewis E. An Anthology of Beowulf Criticism. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. 1963, 1980 (Sixth Printing). A collection of essays, including:

"The Christian Colouring in the Beowulf" F.A. Blackburn.
"The Heroic Age, an Excerpt" H. Munro Chadwick.
" The Ideal of Kingship in Beowulf" Levin L. Schucking.
"Beowulf : The Monsters and the Critics. J.R.R. Tolkien.
" The Religious Principle in Beowulf" Marie Padgett Hamilton.
"Beowulf" Kemp Malone.
" Beowulf and Christian Allegory: An Interpretation of Unferth." Morton W. Bloomfield.
"The Doctine of Charity in Mediaeval Literary Gardens: A Topical Approach Through Symbolism and Allegory" D.W. Robertson Jr.
"The Oral-Formulaic Character of Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry" Francis P. Magoun. "Beowulf and the Liturgy." Allen Cabaniss.
" Beowulf's Three Great Fights." H.L. Rogers.
"Good and Evil: Light and Darkness: Joy and Sorrow in Beowulf" Herbert G. Wright.
"Sapientia et Fortitudo as the Controlling Theme of Beowulf" R.E. Kaske.
"Sutton Hoo and Beowulf " C.L. Wrenn.
"Beowulf-- An Allegory of Salvation?" M.B. McNamee, S.J.
" Patristics and Old English Literature: Notes on Some Poems" Morton W. Bloomfield.
"The Christian Perspective in Beowulf" Margaret E. Goldsmith

Short, Douglas D. Beowulf Scholarship: An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. 1980. A chronological bibliography beginning in 1705 and ending in 1978. Medium to short annotations. Author index and subject index included. Each entry is numbered. Found in the Free Library.

Tolkien, J.R.R " Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics. " Proceedings of the British Academy XXII (1936), pp245-296. Reprinted all over the place, this work is considered the beginning of modern Beowulf scholarship. Tolkien argues that the Beowulf must not be so much used and abuse as a historical artifact, but must be looked upon as a poem. This work is simply a must read. The Free Library has a separate copy.

Whitelock, Dorothy. The Audience of Beowulf. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1951, 1958 (corrected). A discussion of whom might have originally listened to Beowulf. Found in my collection.

Internet Websites

The Adventures of Beowulf. http://www.lone-star.net/literature/beowulf/index.html This website is a translation by Dr. David Breeden.

Beowulf Criticism. An annotated bibliography with emphasis on criticism. This site seems to want to pick-up where Short's bibliography left off. Unfortunately, it does not succeed, and it occasionally misleads.

Beowulf Prepares for Battle Once Again. http://csis.pace.edu/grendel/prosj1e/ FRAME.HTM This rather awkward site is a glossed translation.

Beowulf Resources. An annotated bibliography and a very useful one.

Characters-Beowulf. http://midusa.net/~evelyn/character,htm This site contains a 1910 translation of the poem. Text is glossed. This site also helps you link to other site concerned with Beowulf.

Dragons--Beowulf. http://www.debian,org/ports.beowulf/ A translation of the poem.

The Electronic Beowulf. andrew@icarus.demon.co.uk. Probably the most ambitious site found on the web concerning Beowulf, and also probably the hardest to use. The core of this site is what seems to be a digitalized version of the poem's manuscript. This site seems to also take some serious software to use.

The Illustrated Beowulf. jbw17@cornell.edu A joke with the cookie monster as Grendel. It's about time someone had some fun with this.