‘Beowulf’— a historical experience

OUISVILLE — Most of us have had some sort of encounter with “Beowulf” at some point in our lives. For many, like me, that first introduction came in the underclassmen years in high school, when a strict English teacher made us read the poem in Old English and memorize different parts to get a feel for the language and the way the author used it. I remember it being a very painful time.

But as I’ve grown older, I look back with pride on the fact that I studied the poem, which was written by an Anglo-Saxon sometime around 1000 A.D., according to scholars, though it most certainly was the result, at least on a base level, of oral tradition, a myth from somewhere in Scandinavia that took place between the fifth and sixth centuries A.D. It is, of course, an epic, complete with a hero, monsters, good and evil, swords, travels, curses and all the fun things a classic epic is supposed to contain.

Up to this point, my knowledge of the poem, except on the rare occasion I answer a question about it in a trivia game, has not really enriched my life in any meaningful (or applicable) way. I’m sure it’s the same for most of us. Until now. With the release of the sort-of animated movie of the same name, what I remembered from that sleepy morning class 20 or so years ago has come in handy. And while the movie is a bit different from the way I remember the poem, it is nonetheless worth the price of admission, and is groundbreaking in its own way.

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