Beowulf 2008

My son had a friend over, and with my youngest, they sat at the kitchen table eating subs for dinner. I cleaned up the kitchen, half-listening to them talking. Someone said, “But the coolest guy of all was Beowulf.”

Ok: I was an English major. And not an English major because I couldn’t figure out what else to do, an English major of the I-actually-like-studying-literature brand. So I asked, like an idiot, “You like Beowulf?”

Guest immediately answered, “He’s beast.” (I know enough to know that means he’s cool, thank you very much.)

“Are you…reading Beowulf in school?”

Guest hesitated, as if I had asked him whether swans mate for life—the question had a component that interested him, but wasn't worth answering.

 My youngest warmed my heart by asking, “Was that a poem or prose, Mom?”

I started to spout on and on about oldest surviving yadda Anglo Saxon poem yadda yadda, but then I ran downstairs to get my old Norton’s anthology and ran my fingers over those so-familiar onion-skin pages. With a flourish, I opened the book on the table for them. My oldest read a few lines; they laughed at the language, and then I flipped forward to the scene when Grendel’s mother shows up, figuring they’d like the violence.

“Right!” Guest shouted out, suddenly alert. “Angelina Jolie!”

“All right, who’s tougher,” I asked, my mind back in Teen Boyland, “Braveheart or Beowulf?” My sons hesitated, but Guest, with pained patience, explained:

 “Beowulf is worth 10 Bravehearts. Beowulf is way more buff.”

Comments

[Dawn]

I have to agree with them. Beowulf is WAY more buff.

But Grendel is gnarlier.

I have that Norton Anthology, too, as I suppose anyone does who studied 1st year English in university. There's something about those onionskin pages, isn't there? So much literature contained in one book. I must dig it out and have another look.