Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig - Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon Literature

Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon Literature

In 1815 Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin published the first edition of the Epic of Beowulf titled De Danorum rebus gestis secul. III & IV : Poëma Danicum dialecto Anglosaxonica in a Latin translation. Despite his lack of knowledge of Anglo-Saxon literature, Grundtvig quickly discovered a number of flaws in Thorkelin's rendering of the poems. After a heated debate with Thorkelin, Johan Bülow, who had sponsored Thorkelin's work, offered to support a new translation by Grundtvig - this time into Danish. The result, Bjovulfs Drape (1820), was the first modern language translation of Beowulf.

Grundtvig went on to explore the extensive literature of the Anglo-Saxons which survived in Old English and Latin. In both poetry and prose, it revealed the spirituality of the early Church in the North. Grundtvig was very influenced by these ancient models of Christian and historical thought (notably the 8th-century Bede's Ecclesiastical History, written in Latin). Using the resources of the Royal Library in Copenhagen and of the libraries of Exeter, Oxford and Cambridge in three successive summer visits to England (1829–31), he went on to make transcriptions of two of the four great codices of Anglo-Saxon poetry: the Exeter Book and the codex designated Junius 11 in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Although he thought to publish them, this project was never realized. Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon literature continued to be a major source of inspiration to Grundtvig. It had a wide-ranging influence upon his work.