My dear friends, Know you what today is? It is September 24th, one year after I published Remembered Lore! I will reveal the significance of this date in a moment, but first let us toss some autumn leaves into the air to celebrate a year of myth re-found, words re-learned, and golden drafts of poetry … Continue reading A Light on the Road
Tag: Anglo-Saxon
Exploring Tolkien’s Beowulf with Dr. Shippey
It was some time ago that I discovered this three-part lecture series by Dr. Tom Shippey on Tolkien’s translation of Beowulf, and it has been on my mind to share it with you. Dr. Shippey is a respected Tolkien scholar, specializing, like Tolkien, in Old and Middle English language and literature.1 His lectures are always … Continue reading Exploring Tolkien’s Beowulf with Dr. Shippey
Yet Another Translation of Beowulf
I very recently finished reading John Lesslie Hall’s translation of Beowulf. Several months ago I shared my reflections on Seamus Heaney’s and J.R.R. Tolkien’s translations of Beowulf in Beowulf: Seamus Heaney vs. J.R.R. Tolkien. It feels appropriate to share my thoughts on Hall’s translation as well. Hall’s translation is a verse translation which, to the … Continue reading Yet Another Translation of Beowulf
On “Gloaming”
Say the word gloaming aloud to yourself. Does it not have such a lovely sound? What does it make you think of? It reminds me of something like to dusk and twilight but…gloamier. Not as dark as dusk---perhaps not even as dark as twilight. That lovely, velvety time of evening when it is dark but … Continue reading On “Gloaming”
Beowulf: Seamus Heaney vs. J.R.R. Tolkien
Beowulf was my first major introduction to original myth.1 The translation I read was a bilingual edition by Seamus Heaney which I had purchased at the gift shop in the British Library in London, England. Some years later I also read J.R.R. Tolkien’s translation. I now lay before you, briefly, my reflections on the two … Continue reading Beowulf: Seamus Heaney vs. J.R.R. Tolkien
A Love Story, or The Birth of My Perpetual Obsession with Language
I was but sixteen when I stepped into a virtual classroom headed by a tutor with more enthusiasm and vigor than my primarily-introverted self thought possible. I had been given a book in a language I knew not and a language which, had I paused to consider, would not have been my first choice to … Continue reading A Love Story, or The Birth of My Perpetual Obsession with Language
