By: Maryann Yin,
on 12/21/2015
The Esquire Network has unleashed an official trailer for a television adaptation of Beowulf. The video embedded above offers glimpses of Kieran Bew playing the titular character.
The A.V. Club reports that the air date for the premiere episode has been scheduled for Jan. 23, 2016. Follow this link to download a free digital copy of the Old English epic poem. (via Comic Book Resources)
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By: Kirsty,
on 9/9/2013
This month our Oxford World’s Classics reading list is on folk and fairy tales. Many of these stories pre-date the printing press, and most will no doubt continue to be told for hundreds of years to come. How many of these have you heard of, and have we missed out your favourite? Let us know in the comments.
No list on folklore would be complete without Beowulf: probably the most famous English folk tale and a great story. This half-historical, half-legendary epic poem written by an unknown poet between the 8th and 11th century tells the story of the majestic hero Beowulf, who saves Hrothgar, the Danish king, from monstrous and terrifying enemies before eventually being slain. Through this tale of swashbuckling adventure we also see the power struggles and brutality of medieval politics.
Selected Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
In 1812 the Brothers Grimm took contemporary German folk tales and shaped them in their own bloodthirsty way, and in doing so captivated and horrified children for years to come. There are no morals here; no happy endings – the antagonists such as the evil stepmother won’t just steal your sweets but would kill you without a second thought. Here we have, for example, the original Snow White, with the Witch forced to dance in red-hot shoes until her death.
Le Morte Darthur by Thomas Malory
This text, written by Sir Thomas Malory in 1470, provides us with the definitive version of many of the King Arthur stories: the Knights of the Round Table, Sir Lancelot’s betrayal, and the Quest for the Holy Grail. Here we see the Round Table full of warring factions; we see Arthur the King discredited by Lancelot, who begins an affair with his wife, Guinevere, and we see Arthur’s supporters’ revenge that Arthur is powerless to prevent. The book shows how Arthur and his court lived and felt – and it’s no wonder the legend is such a fundamental part of British culture.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
When the mysterious Green Knight turns up at King Arthur’s court and challenges anyone to strike him with his axe and accept a return blow in a year and a day, Sir Gawain, the youngest Knight in Sir Arthur’s court, decides to prove his mettle by accepting the challenge. However, when he strikes the Green Knight and beheads him, the man laughs, picks up his head and tells Gawain he has a year and a day to live. Despite being written in the fourteenth century, this poem’s main theme – proving yourself – makes it instantly relatable and compelling.
Statue of Hans Christian Andersen reading The Ugly Duckling, in Central Park, New York City
This collection of fairy tales is a world away from Grimm’s violent and sinister collection – this Danish author was the creator of charming, accessible stories such as The Ugly Duckling and the Emperor’s New Clothes. Despite being poorly received when they were first published in 1936 because of their informality and focus on being amusing rather than educational, these stories have entertained generations of children. Christian Andersen invented the “fairy tale” as we know it today – simple, timeless stories that explore universal themes and end happily.
Eirik the Red and Other Icelandic Sagas
This saga was originally told orally around 1000 CE and was written down in the thirteenth or fourteenth century and is a major landmark in Icelandic folk literature. It tells the story of Eirik’s exile for murder, the same fate as his father, and his discovery and settlement in “Vinland”, a lush, plentiful country. It is believed to describe one of the first discoveries of North America, five hundred years before Captain Cook.
This epic comes from Medieval Germany and is a masterpiece of fantasy storytelling. Written in 1200 but rediscovered in the 1700s, it has since become the German national epic – on a par with the Iliad or the Ramayana. This story has it all: dragons, invisibility cloaks, fortune telling, and hoards of treasure guarded by dwarves and giants. We see love, jealousy and conflict, and the story ends with awful slaughter. The story has inspired a number of adaptations, including Wagner’s Ring cycle.
The Mabinogion is a collection of eleven medieval Welsh stories which combine Arthurian legend, Celtic myth and social narrative to create an epic series – its importance as a record of the history of culture and mythology in Wales is enormous. The stories are fantastical: the Four Branches of the Mabinogi are tales about British pagan gods recreated as human heroes, and sociological: The Dream of Macsen Wledig is an exaggerated story about the Roman Emperor Magnus Maximus.
Jessica Harris graduated from Warwick University with a degree in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics and has been working as an intern in the Online Product Marketing department in the Oxford office of Oxford University Press.
For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford’s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. You can follow Oxford World’s Classics on Twitter, Facebook, or here on the OUPblog.
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Image credit: Statue of Hans Christian Andersen reading The Ugly Duckling, in Central Park, New York City. By Dismas (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
The post A folklore and fairy tales reading list from Oxford World’s Classics appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Lauren,
on 2/16/2011
English lacks a convenient word for “ancestors of Germanic speaking people.” Teutons, an obsolete English gloss for German Germanen, is hardly ever used today. The adjective Germanic has wide currency, and, when pressed for the noun, some people translate Germanen as “Germans” (not a good solution). I needed this introduction as an apology for asking the question: “What did the ancient Teutons drink?” The “wine card” contained many items, for, as usual, not everybody drank the same, and different occasions called for different beverages and required different states of intoxication, or rather inebriation, for being drunk did not stigmatize the drinker. On the contrary, it allowed him (nothing is known about her in such circumstances) to reach the state of ecstasy. Oaths sworn “under the influence” were not only honored: if anything, they carried more weight than those sworn by calculating, sober people. Many shrewd rulers used this situation to their advantage, filled guests with especially strong homebrew, and offered toasts that could not be refused.
In the mythology of the Indo-European peoples a distinction was made between the language of the mortals and the language of the gods, a synonym game, to be sure, but a game fraught with deep religious significance. The myths of the Anglo-Saxons and Germans have not come down to us, but the myths of the Scandinavians have, and in one of the songs of the Poetic Edda (a collection of mythological and heroic tales) we read that the humans call a certain drink öl, while the Vanir call it veig (the Vanir were one of the two clans of the Scandinavian gods). Öl is, of course, ale, but veig is a mystery. No secure cognates of this word have been attested, and the choice among its homonyms (“strength,” “lady,” and “gold”) leaves us with several possibilities. Identifying “strong drink” with “strength” sounds inviting, but who has heard of an old alcoholic beverage simply called “strength”? Veig- is a common second element in women’s names, of which the English speaking world has retained the memory of at least one, Solveig, either Per Gynt’s true love in Ibsen and Grieg or somebody’s next door neighbor (I live in a state settled by German and Scandinavian immigrants, so to me Solveig is a household word, quite independent of Norwegian literature and music). It is hard to decide which -veig entered into those names. “Gold” cannot be ruled out. On the other hand, it was a woman’s duty to pour wine at feasts, so that -veig “drink” would also make sense. In any case, veig remains the name of a divine drink of the medieval Scandinavians. It stands at the bottom of our card.
From books in the Old Germanic languages we know about the Teutons’ wine, mead, beer, ale, and lith ~ lid, the latter with the vowel of Modern Engl. ee. Lith must have corresponded to cider (cider is an alteration of ecclesiastical Greek ~ Medieval Latin sicera ~ cicera, a word taken over from Hebrew). It was undoubtedly a strong drink, inasmuch as, according to the prophesy in the oldest versions of the Germanic Bible, John the Baptist was not to taste either wine or lith. The word is now lost, and so are its origins. Mead is still a familiar poeticism, while the other three have survived, though, as we will see, beer does not refer to the same product as it did in the days of the Anglo-Saxons—an important consideration, because the taste of a beve
By: Lauren,
on 12/9/2010
By: Kirsty,
on 10/6/2010
My last three books have been a 670 page life of the agricultural labouring poet John Clare, a two and half thousand page edition of the complete works of Shakespeare, and a 500 page “intellectual biography” of Shakespeare in the context of his age. So how could I resist an invitation from OUP to write a VERY SHORT book! Mind you, it was a ludicrous proposition to introduce a subject the size of English Literature in a mere 50,000 words (I pushed them up from the standard 40k limit for the series by cunningly asking for 60k and splitting the difference…). But the series guidelines were very helpful: “The text should not read like an encyclopedia entry or a textbook; depending on the topic, it may be more comprehensive or more idiosyncratic in its coverage. Don’t be afraid to express a point of view or to inject some style into the prose. Focus on issues, details, and context that make the subject interesting; you should draw your reader in with examples and quotations. Give the reader a sense both of your subject’s contours and of the debates that shape it.” Good principles, which have made for a great series – so many people have said how much they like these little books.
So how did I set about the task? Being a Literary History Man, I began by looking for literary historical precedent.
In 1877 a chaplain to Queen Victoria called the Reverend Stopford A. Brooke published a primer for students and general readers called English Literature. By the time of his death, half a million copies were in print. 160 pages long and produced in handy pocket format, it is the Victorian equivalent of a VSI. Brooke surveyed a vast terrain, from Beowulf and Caedmon to Charlotte Brontë and Alfred Tennyson, with admirable tenacity and vigour, if a little too much patriotic uplift and Anglo-Saxon prejudice for modern taste. But his even-paced chronological march and his desire to give at least a name-check to every author he considered significant meant that his little book too often reduced itself to a parade of the greatest (and not so great) hits of English literature. Faced with a similar task to Brooke’s, and more than one hundred further years’ literary production to cover, I adopted a more varied and selective approach. I made no attempt to offer a historical survey of English poets, novelists, playwrights and non-fiction writers. Frequently I skip over generations in a step; I loop forward and back in time as I identify key themes.
I devote a good deal of attention to questions of origin. From where do we get the idea of literature as a special kind of writing? What could justifiably be described as the first work of English literature and when did the conception of a body of national literature emerge? Which practising novelist wrote the first self-conscious defence of the art of the novel? These are some of the questions I have tried to answer.
Sometimes, I slow the pace and tighten the focus, exploring, for example, a scene from Shakespeare’s King Lear, an instance of the technique of “free indirect discourse” in Jane Austen’s Emma, a poignant stanza of nonsense by Edward Lear, a compositional change of mind on the part of Wilfred Owen, and Seamus Heaney’s preoccupation with prehistoric bodies excavated from Danish peat bogs. I make no apology for these moments of “close reading”: if the study of English Literature is to be true to its object, it must attend to particular words and phrases, verse lines and sentences, movements of thought and structures of writing. My sampling of passages, works, and forms of attention is eclectic – deliberately so, for there is no other body of writing upon earth more varied and inexhaustible than English Literature. That thought makes any attempt to write a “very short introduction” to the subject both deeply
By: Stephanie,
on 4/23/2008
The adjective paltry gives little trouble to etymologists. It came to 16th-century English from the continent, most likely, from Low (that is, northern) German. There was also paltry “trash, rubbish,” but final -y made its passage from noun to adjective easy. A similar fate, from noun to adjective, befell its synonym trumpery “fraud, trickery,” a word of French descent: it soon acquired the meaning “trashy.” Low German paltrig “ragged, torn” is related to palter- in palterlumpen “rags.” This palterlumpen is a curious formation because its first element (palter-) also means “rag(s).” At one time, I became aware of the existence of compounds in which both parts have the same or nearly the same meaning, as in courtyard (“yard-yard” or “court-court”). Once detected, such words began crossing my path with surprising frequency. I had known them for years but never paid attention to their makeup. Compare downhill, literally “hill-hill” and Wealhtheow, the name of the queen in Beowulf, literally, as I think, “slave-slave.” A palterlumpen must have been a prodigiously ragged rag.
Despite its undignified background, palt- (as in palter) is an ancient word, though it occurs more often with its vowel a and consonant l in reverse order. Middle Dutch and Middle Low German had plet “rag,” from the assumed form platja. Danish pjalt, with cognates in Swedish and Norwegian, means the same. In Danish and Norwegian words, j is a typical insertion, used to express the speaker’s contempt of the object of discussion: pjalt turns out to be a despicable rag, a rag-rag indeed In the 4th century, plat “patch” was used in the text of the Gothic Bible (below, the word corresponding to it in the Authorized Version is italicized: “No one puts a piece of new garment upon an old,” L V: 36, Mk II: 21). Also in Russian, plat means “a piece of cloth,” but it remains unclear whether Gothic plat is its cognate or whether one language borrowed from another. Perhaps we are dealing with a so-called migratory, or culture, word (whatever its origin), current from north to south, like the names of tools that travel over half the world with the people who use them. Engl. plot “a piece of land” looks like plat ~ palt, but no consensus has been reached about possible ties between them (and even if all researchers had agreed on the etymology of plot, jubilation would have been premature, for consensus and truth are different things).
The most enigmatic noun in this series is paletot “loose outer garment; overcoat.” English dictionaries record it, but it is an obsolete or obsolescent loanword from Modern French, formerly often applied to a child’s coat. However, in French it is a living word. The initial form of paletot was palletoc. In England, from the 14th to the 16th century, paltock ~ paltok designated a kind of doublet or cloak with sleeves. Strangely, this word appeared in written English before it surfaced in French sources. This chronology does not necessarily mean that the word was coined in England, but it casts doubt on its French origin. Paletot produces the impression of a double diminutive: pal-et-ot (pal- means “pall; a cloak; mantle,” from Latin pallium “coverlet”), assuming that the word is Romance. However, paltok, with its final -k, needs an explanation, and here, too, a Germanic connection has been offered. When a transparent word like pal-et-ot coexists with an opaque one like paltok, the transparent form raises the suspicion of being the product of folk etymology, since it is more natural for people to change a word lacking associations in their language into something making sense than to do the opposite. We can understand how asparagus became sparrow grass, but who would “corrupt” (a favorite verb of older philologists) sparrow grass into the outwardly meaningless asparagus?
A 17th-century lexicographer defined our article of clothing so: “A long and thick pelt, or cassock, a garment like a short cloak with sleeves, or such a one as the most of our modern pages are attired in.” But in France it was first worn by peasants and therefore could not be a fancy cloak. If paltock is an English rather than a French word, perhaps it contains the by now familiar root palt-, followed by the diminutive suffix -ock, as in bullock, hillock, and so forth. A similar etymology turned up in the literature more than a hundred years ago but found no supporters, because the suggested suffix was Welsh, and indeed, why produce a hybrid when a purebred is a possibility? It would be better for my etymology if we knew exactly in which country paltock was coined and who made paltocks, but then its origin would have not baffled scholars so long. My only (weak) consolation is that the existing etymologies of paltock are hardly more convincing that mine.
When Marxism was at its peak among the German 19th-century social democrats, revisionists appeared (no religion without a heresy), whose slogan, with regard to workers’ struggle for their rights, was: “The goal is nothing, movement is everything.” Etymologists cannot occasionally help thinking of this slogan. Yet their goal exists, even if they seldom reach it. Our movement in the present essay has not been useless. The existence of the word palt ~ plat has been ascertained beyond reasonable doubt. It was probably a culture name for “a piece of cloth,” frequently degenerating into “rag.” Some such rags showed particularly strong traces of wear and tear (palterlumpen, for example); other pieces may have been solid enough to be made into cloaks. Ragged things were called paltry in northern Germany and the adjacent lands. Paltry made its way to England and is still with us, though we remember only its figurative sense.
The verb palter (“to talk in a confused manner, babble”) also exists It is anybody’s guess whether this verb has anything to do with palter- “rag” (did palter mean “to deal in rags; to trifle”? Skeat’s suggestion) or with its distant synonym falter (no one has compared them), or with neither.
Anatoly Liberman is the author of Word Origins…And How We Know Them as well as An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction. His column on word origins, The Oxford Etymologist, appears here each Wednesday. Send your etymology question to [email protected]; he’ll do his best to avoid responding with “origin unknown.”
By: Darth Corder,
on 1/30/2008
Hello all my loyal followers out there in Blog Land, it is I Darth Bill once again!!!!! Wait a minute was that a bunny I just saw????? No, thank badness, it was just a rabid squirrel. Just get yourself together and repeat three times: "There is no such thing as a Lagomorph." Yes I feel much better now.
Geezzz, now I got an angry squirrel after me!!!! What the heck did I do?????????
Now, really, on to buisness as unusual. Check out these photographs from the Beowulf Program we had just the other day, it was really alot of fun (and if you get the chance maybe pick up one of the books I recommended from my 1/18/08 posting)!!!
Some of the gang making paper bag Grendel puppets. Scarry stuff I tell ya!!!!!!!!
Darth Bill demonstrating to the gang that running with Sciccors is cool!!!!!! (um, don't tell your parents I said that, okay)
Beowulf and a Coke. It just doesn't get better than that!!!!(and if your thinking the Coke Company paid me to say that, well I just wish!!!!!)
And now ladies and gentlemen, Grendel versus Beowulf!!!!! (Gee, I always thought Beowulf would be alot taller?????)
And now for something completly different, Book Reviews:
Wild Ride: A Graphic Guide Adventure by Liam O’Donnell and Mike Deas – This is a very cool graphic novel about several strangers who are on their way into the deep wilderness of
The World of Quest: Volume 1 by Jason Kruse – Welcome to the whacked out, dangerous, and just plain strange
Oh, parting is such sweet sorrow! Until we blog again peace all,
Bill
By: Carl,
on 1/29/2008
Hey, one and all, it's Carl. Cyber Kid 303 came in today and got his free book. Here's a picture:
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Did you ever read about the Trojan War? The War between the Greek cities and Troy? The war that dragged on for ten years? This is how the Greeks came up with a desperate and cunning plan to capture the unsuspecting city. A really good read.
Imagine you were Arthur, a boy probably not much older than you, and that you suddenly became King of all England. Pretty cool, huh? Not if you had a bunch of rival kings who wanted to overthrow you! This is another very exciting story that says exciting no matter how many times you've heard it--and it's especially great if you've never read it before!
By: Carl,
on 1/24/2008
Hey everyone, it's Carl with a message to Will's dad--We'd be glad to give his T-shirt to you. Just come to the desk in the library in Imaginon. And please keep sending in those great comments, Will. You really made me want to read those books! And don't forget--you still have a free book available for writing to us (and so does everyone who writes in and tells us about a book).
And a reminder--Bill has rescheduled his Beowulf program for next Tuesday, the 29 th at 2pm. He told me about it and it sounds great! Call 704-973-2720 to register.
By: Darth Corder,
on 1/18/2008
Hello, all true believers out there in the Land of Blog, it is I once again the great and terrible Darth Bill. I must apologize (geez, I must be slipping Sith--never apologize!) but I fell really terrible that I missed giving my Beowulf program this past Tuesday. I was really jazzed about doing it but you are never going to believe what happened to prevent me from doing so. Let's just say what prevented me had long pointy teeth, two furry ears and a deceptively cute nose. Sounds pretty innocent, doesn't it? But I warn ya, its extremely dangerous!!!!! Lets just take a closer look at this great monstrosity, but don't say I didn't warn you if you do happen to have nightmares after looking!!!!!! Last chance to look away. I'm warning ya!!!!!
Yes, while hunting down lowly Jedi in the Outer Rim, I ran across this "innocent looking creature." I proceeded to calling it all sorts of ugly names when all of a sudden it flew through the air, its huge, hideous, great long pointy teeth going straight for my throat!!!!! I drew my lightsaber just in time to deflect it's try for my throat. All I can say is that for 3 days and 3 nights we fought a great battle. How did this epic battle, much greater than that between Beowulf and Grendel, end? Lets just say that now I have a brand spanking new lucky rabbit's foot! However I was wounded most grievously and thus I was forced to stay home mending, using great Sith magics, to pull myself from the brink of death. Thus I missed doing my Beowulf program. But do not be unduly sad as the Beowulf program has been rescheduled for Tuesday, January 29 at 2:00. Hope to see you there. Also don't forget about the Heroes and Villains Festival Tuesday, January 22 starting at 2:00.
Well enough about my recent adventures, lets talk about some good reading material, me buckos!!!!
Two really good books I have read recently concerning Beowulf are:
Beowulf by Charles Keeping and Kevin Crossley-Holland - This retelling of the Beowulf hero tale is really a great mix of exciting narrative and illustrations. In this version of the tale a stranger wanders into the great hall of King Hygelac of the Geats. This stranger tells the King and the men in the hall about the monster Grendel and his savagery toward the Danish people. One man within the hall listens to the tale with great interest. He is so impassioned by the tale that he vows to sail to Denmark and vanquish this foul beast. The man's name, of course, is Beowulf. This is a really great version of the tale of Beowulf and if you think Grendel is the only monster Beowulf must contend with, think again.
Another great version of the Beowulf story is:
Beowulf adapted and illustrated by Gareth Hinds - This retelling of the Beowulf legend is equal parts text and illustrations. Mr. Hinds uses cool illustrations to not only enhance this great story, but at times the artwork alone is the tool in which the story is told. One great example is the battle between Grendel and Beowulf. Told strictly through illustrations without a single word, this battle scene will leave you breathless. I highly recommend this book!!!!!!
And now for something completely different!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just wanted to talk briefly about 2 Graphic Novels that are brand new to the library and I recently finished reading.
R.L. Stine's Goosebumps: Scary Summer - This is the third in the line of Graphic Novel adaptions of popular R.L. Stine's Goosebumps stories. The stories included in this volume are "Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes", "Ghost Beach" and "The Horror at Camp Jelly Jam." Each story is adapted and illustrated by different and very talented individuals. I found "Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes" and "The Horror at Camp Jelly Jam" to be more humorous than scary and that was cool as I like funny as well as scary. However if you want scary, "Ghost Beach" should do a pretty good job of leaving you with a good case of the creepies. Very well done, so check it out!!!!!!!
Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures Volume 10 - Hey, hey, hey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The newest volume in the Star Wars Clone Wars Adventures has just hit the library system and it rocks!!!!!! Like the rest of the Graphic Novels in the series, the new one has 4 great stories included. My favorite story in this volume stars Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. They find themselves in a particularly bad situation, trapped in a Canyon, appropriately named Death Canyon, by a bunch of intergalactic bounty hunters. The only way out is through a stretch of of ravines named Thunder Road. Obi-Wan is sure they are doomed as he watches young Anakin patch together a "classic" (Obi-Wan calls it a piece of junk) Land Speeder. This story is both exciting and funny as the two try to escape through Thunder Road using the beat-up Land Speeder. Man, I just love it and know you will also. The rest of the stories are awesome, so this one is a must read.
Well, little cow pokes, until next time,
Bill
By: Becky,
on 1/14/2008
Sophie Gee, an assistant professor of English at Princeton University and author of The Scandal of the Season, wrote in yesterday's NY Times Book Review section,
Mass-market adaptations make Great Books go bad. Or so conventional wisdom would have it. But every so often, plundering and pillaging a canonical text for the sake of entertainment gives it the kiss of life. Take “Beowulf” and “Paradise Lost.” The unpalatable truth is that both originals are now virtually unreadable.Or so conventional wisdom would have it.
By: Carl,
on 1/11/2008
Cyber Kid 303 has just left us another comment:
My computer connection failed just as I was sending my comment, so I'm resending it just in case it didn't make it earlier.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling--Harry, who grew up with muggles (non-magical people), is really a wizard. His muggle mom and his wizard dad died when a powerful, evil wizard named Voldemort killed them. The only other wizard more powerful than him is Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts school that teaches magic. Harry, meanwhile, at age 11 is living with his horrible aunt and uncle and their horrible son, Dudley. They get a letter that says Harry should go to Hogwarts where he not only finds friends and adventure, but also danger.J.K. Rowling has written 6 other books in the Harry Potter series that is one of the top selling series in the world. Other Harry Potter books in the series include, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (I just finished this one and will write a blog about it next), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
P.S. I am going to the Beowulf program.
Very good, cyber kid. I know you'll enjoy the Beowulf program--Bill does really good stuff. Besides, Beowulf is one of the greatest hero-vs-monster stories of all time. Have you read all the Harry Potter books, cyber kid? I haven't, I'm sorry to say, but Bill has. Which one is your favorite, Bill? How about the rest of you--which one is your favorite?
Carl
PS--Did you know we have a technowizard here at Imaginon who got her degree in Computer Magic from Hogwarts? Don't believe me? Look at our December 5 post called "Kelly the Technowizard Comes Through"
By: Stephanie,
on 1/9/2008
Everybody seems to resent buzzwords, and everybody uses them. It may therefore be of some interest to look at the origin of those universally reviled favorites. Language consists of ready-made blocks. When we want to express gratitude, we say thank you. The reaction is also predictable, even though the formula changes from decade to decade. At one time, people used to respond with if you please, don’t mention it, or not at all. All three yielded to you are welcome, and now I constantly hear no problem, which irritates me (of course, no problem).
By: Becky,
on 1/7/2008
rendered in Lego
by MicahBerger at Brickshelf. Click each thumbnail for a larger view.
This turned up in my "Beowulf" GoogleAlert...
By: Aline Pereira,
on 1/5/2008
I have to admit that when I was my boys’ age (9 and 6), I’d never heard of Beowulf and I still haven’t actually read it – but it was the first book Son Number 2 pulled out of the Christmas pile. His grandmother was very impressed! And I don’t think he knew the name because of the film which came out in November – that hasn’t reached the wilds of Yorkshire yet.
Erstwhile Children’s Laureate (UK), author Michael Morpurgo and illustrator Michael Foreman have teamed up on a goodly number of books and their vibrant retellings of legends are always more than a satisfying read. So I’m looking forward to starting on Beowulf as a bedtime story soon: as are my boys, even though they’ve both now read it. They still love hearing stories they already know, as well as new ones.
Two Graphic Novel versions of the story have been nominated for the Cybils – we’ll find out very soon if they’ve been shortlisted; in the meantime you can read a review by A Year of Reading here.
Michael Morpurgo’s retelling is aimed at a younger audience – but then, as Not Just For Kids says, it’s not just for grown-ups! Thanks too for the link to this review of the film by Michael Morpurgo – the message comes through loud and clear: read the book, read the book!
Finally, while looking around to see what anyone else has said about Beowulf, I came across this moving post from author Uma Krishnaswami – Beowulf had a role to play in the setting up of John’s Shelf, a mobile book-shelf for taking books to children at the Children’s Hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico – they accept donations of books in English, Spanish and Navajo – and who knows, it sounds like an initiative that could (and should) catch on…
By: Becky,
on 1/2/2008
Beowulf is back. Again. No, I'm not talking about the recent movie version, which came hard on the heels of the film Beowulf & Grendel (and its "making of" documentary, Wrath of Gods, which I've heard is supposed to be quite good). I was reminded by Mary Lee's recent post of a few recent items I wanted to mention. Mary Lee at her blog A Year of Reading posted a review of the two recent
By: Neil Gaiman,
on 12/20/2007
Yes, it is true. I'm holding several copies as DC just sent me a batch of
the pamphlet inserts.It's a bonus item which reprints 8 pages of 'sketches' from
the supplemental material in the new edition of our book along with one now
fully painted image that acts as a cover (to the insert). I believe that it's a
Border's exclusive.
That cover image will also be featured as one of the next three s&n
prints in the deluxe Stardust box set (available only from GMP) but, of course,
printed ever so much better in that form. All of the next six and final prints
in the set will be newly painted images rather reprints of already existing
illustrations.
Here's a jpeg of the cover art so you can take a gander at it..
By: Neil Gaiman,
on 12/3/2007
Yes, the cliffs and high hills are from the poem.
In the script the line of dialogue was,
"They sing our shame from the middle sea to the ice-lands of the north."
I'm not sure whether that's what Anthony Hopkins actually says in the film, though. (And I have no idea where the just-as-anachronistic Vinland line from the Skylding's Watch came from, either. Wasn't in any draft by Roger or me.)
Incidentally, I thought I'd mention again that the Beowulf script book has a lot of the answers to this kind of thing in it, and that none of the descriptions of it currently online seem to explain what kind of thing the book is.
I found a review (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07320/834312-44.stm) which says,
How does a script filled with guts and gore and f-bombs become PG-13 animated fare? Witness "Beowulf: The Script Book" (HarperCollins Entertainment, $16.95), which is actually two scripts, both by graphic novelist/author Neil Gaiman and Oscar-winning screenwriter Roger Avary.
The first script is what you get when you combine the writer of "Pulp Fiction" (Avary) and the writer of "Sandman," "Stardust" and "American Gods" (Gaiman), with no rules or outside interference. The second is their draft of the final studio script.
Avary provides a Foreword and "Middleword" that describe his decades-long obsession with "Beowulf" -- a centuries-old, 3,000-line poem -- and his growing compulsion to re-create it onscreen. He eventually, wrenchingly, gives up on directing "Beowulf" in the face of Steven Bing's big bucks and director Robert Zemeckis' passion for the project. Gaiman gives the Afterword, in which he says of the introduction, "Roger Avary is much too honest about getting the script made. That's because Roger is a Holy Madman."
Gaiman and Avary first huddled in Mexico in 1997 to create the tequila-fueled first draft, in which the monster Grendel's penchant for human flesh knows no censorship. It does, however, follow the timeline of the original Old English poem.
Later, they have Zemeckis' input about taking cinematic liberties, along with his blessing to let their imaginations run wild, as his innovative Performance Capture animation process (as seen in "The Polar Express" film) knows no bounds.
The timeline and the setting is changed in the final draft -- instead of a story in two parts and in two countries, Beowulf begins and ends in King Hrothgar's court. Beowulf is awarded Hrothgar's throne rather than return home. Instead of meeting Beowulf as the strapping dragonslayer he becomes, we first meet old King Beowulf in his court ... and it's apparent you're in for a different experience than in the first script.
Just as intriguing as the script changes are those honest Avary moments. For instance, he finally finds peace with giving up his "baby" to Zemeckis when "Z." agrees to use Crispin Glover to portray the monster Grendel. The director had a contentious relationship with the eccentric actor during "Back to the Future 2," which resulted in Glover suing Zemeckis when the director inserted the actor's image into scenes. "To this day, the verdict protects actors from having their likeness used without their blessing," Avary writes.
Still, Glover got the job, and Zemeckis used his newfangled technology to make him into a monster onscreen, which may have been payback enough.
The book of "Beowulf" scripts also contains artist Stephen Norrington's renderings that were commissioned by Avary when he believed he would be directing his first version, further fueling the question asked by presenting two visions back-to-back: "What if ...?"
(The mention in the song, though, is completely my fault. Sorry.)
By: Gail Gauthier,
on 11/25/2007
I'm not the only person who has a thing for Beowulf. Camille at Book Moot has actually seen and heard part of it performed by a bard speaking in Old English.
I was more than willing to go watch a movie that included both male and female cartoon nudity, but I don't know if I would have gone out for a clothed bard speaking in Old English. I think Camille has me beat.
By: Gail Gauthier,
on 11/23/2007
Wednesday morning, I heard from BDT. He had just finished reading Beowulf with his sixth grade class, and, he said, the kids really liked it. I found this very interesting because just the night before I'd had a revelation about Beowulf while brushing my teeth.
Okay, here is the basic Beowulf story. Beowulf, while at the height of his strength and power, kills a couple of monsters and saves the day for Hrothgar, the king of a foreign country. Then Beowulf goes home where he is a king to his own people. Time passes. A new monster or dragon or something comes and poses a threat to Beowulf's kingdom. The old hero battles the monster to save his people. But not being at the height of his strength and power, he doesn't survive the experience.
I think this story basically tells the story of human life. We make our greatest achievements while at our physical and mental peak. Then time passes, we grow old, and can't do what we were able to do before. Or, at least, not as well. The people who created and first told Beowulf were expressing this fact of life that no one can get past. The story has endured, not because people loved it but because they recognized that it truly was making a statement about the human condition.
Not exactly a story I would have thought sixth graders would appreciate, though. It's not a story I would think teenagers would care for much, either, but there were a number of them in the theater this afternoon for the showing of the new Beowulf movie. I'm guessing they liked it well enough because the movie has been juiced up quite a bit with sex. In it, Grendel's Mom is a hotty who seduces men, who are then corrupt and lost because they did the deed with her. They also provide her with sons who years later seek their fathers out and wreak havoc upon them.
True, the movie version has a peppier story line than the true Beowulf. It also has a story that's easier to take. We don't want to believe that monsters will just randomly attack people. Random things could happen to us, too, after all. We want to believe that victims do something to bring their fates upon themselves. Beowulf didn't just grow older and weaker the way we all will. He got what was coming to him because of what he did with the Angelina Jolie cartoon.
Actually, that storyline probably is better for kids. There's a moral there for them. With the true Beowulf they're just told a fact of life. With the movie, they're told not to have sex with beautiful monster women who live in caves.
It is good advice.
By: Camille,
on 11/23/2007
This is the way to experience Beowulf. Two years ago Treebeard and the youngest entling and I saw bard, Benjamin Bagby perform his one man show and it was a transforming experience.
Bagby has a DVD now. I hope schools are sharing this with their students.
By: Rebecca,
on 11/22/2007
The Hero Archetype
By Andrew Varhol
As long as Man (and Woman, for all you feminists out there) has existed, the stories of heroes have always fascinated us. From ancient Greek epics to the adventures of modern day superheroes, some of our most popular stories involve a hero and his triumph over the villain. And it seems lately that movie studios are churning out these stories more and more. Why do you think ancient epics still interest us today, and how have stories such as Beowulf, Homer’s Odyssey, and the legend of King Arthur affected modern day “myths?” Do you see any similarities between Beowulf and any particular modern day hero?
By: Rebecca,
on 11/22/2007
The Book vs. the Movie-SPOILER ALERT
By Andrew Varhol
Have you seen the Beowulf movie yet? I went to go see if over the weekend, and not surprisingly, there were some major “edits” made to the story, most notably, the fact that Beowulf does not actually kill Grendel’s Mother and also that the dragon is the son of Beowulf and Grendel’s Mother.
What are your thoughts on this? Do you think Hollywood has the right to tamper with famous works on the grounds of “artistic license?”
By: Rebecca,
on 11/22/2007
By Andrew Varhol
Welcome, brave warriors to our monthly OWC discussion! I know that Rebecca is your regular poster, but I had to steal this one from her, just because I love this month’s pick… and also it gave me a good reason to go see Angelina Jolie looking all sexy. But that’s besides the point. Where was I? Oh yes! This month’s pick is drumrolll…wait for it… Beowulf!
(more…)
By: Neil Gaiman,
on 11/20/2007
Let's see... I'm in the Philippines. Lots of travelling yesterday, and the international date line erased my Tuesday. Just woke up with Mike asleep in the next room. He got here a few hours after me, around 5.00am (on a different plane), and I'm letting him sleep.
An email from Penn Jillette (subject line of email: You Whore) let me know that Amazon have released the Kindle, which was, as a few of you have guessed, the mysterious device I was playing with earlier this year.
Yes, I was sincere (and unpaid) in my enthusiasm for it. They made me send the one I was test driving back a couple of months ago and I still miss it (especially on the planes last night, when I had to grit my teeth and only bring what I could easily carry -- so I read the latest two Russell Hoban books with pleasure then I wrote, but missed having a few dozen books to choose from).
I think it's a bit overpriced at $400. It's a delivery system, after all. Interestingly, they're not yet really pushing some of the things that sold me on it (how easy it is to put your own content onto it, for example, whether Documents or PDFs or downloaded Dr Who novels). But when I was in Hungary, Maddy read a bunch of books on it as she sat in the film studio, and I watched it sell itself to whoever went by, and I watched her treating it as a library or a bookshelf (so when she had finished the Meg Cabot books I'd downloaded as we were leaving, she read Stephen King's Cell, some P.G. Wodehouse and then Dracula, because they were on there). I imagine it's going to get prettier as it goes on, much as the iPod did.
Hi Neil,I see that you're featured on Amazon's Kindle page, providing a favorable review of the technology. Criticism (regarding DRM) is popping up: http://diveintomark.org/archives/2007/11/19/the-future-of-reading and http://daringfireball.net/2007/11/dum What's your take? DRM aside, I feel the device is too expensive. They're competing with tradition, here -- and to do so, they need to offer a compelling product. (I liken digital books to screw-cap wine bottles vs. corks.) People love the feel of paper as they read, and an expensive, proprietary device isn't the answer, is it? Better to sell the device for next to nothing -- if they're going to charge for books, or build a year subscription into the price of the device and charge little or nothing for the books. I also like John Gruber's idea of giving away a Kindle digital book with every print book bought from Amazon.With the current pricing structure (and the DRM issue), I fear the device is destined to flop. There's no compelling reason (that I can see) to own a Kindle device. I'd rather just buy an actual book.
For me it's closer to CDs and iPods. If I'm at home, my iPod tends to sit, half-forgotten, in a pocket or a bag. It's easier to grab a CD and put it on, and I like looking at the packaging, the audio quality is (or feels) better, and the listening experience is different and probably closer to what the artist hoped for. The iPod is, for me, for the road, and I couldn't survive without it.
I don't see that there's a DRM problem -- there's nothing stopping you either reading books on someone else's Kindle or putting non-rights-managed stuff on your own. I don't think everyone has a right to digitally copy and distribute books they bought to others, any more than I think they have a right to, say, photocopy and distribute my books, or to print their own copies and sell or give them away. I'm all for authors giving stuff away if they want to, but authors are at least currently, allowed to decide in what way they want their books made available in the marketplace (Cory Doctorow isn't releasing the individual issues of the comics adaptations he's currently doing under Creative Commons, because the publisher feared it would upset retailers but will be releasing the graphic novel collection as Creative Commons. Fair enough).
...
Dear Mr. Gaiman,I'm the member of an online baby names group, which is rather beside the point except that someone brought up your middle name. Kindred? And then there was a lot of posting on whether people like it or think it's dumb or whatever, but I was curious whether (1) your middle name IS Kindred, and (2) there's a story behind that?
1) I'm afraid not
2) I think the story is that they were thinking of Phillip K Dick's middle name
...
I recently saw “Beowulf 3-D,” which having worked on CGI projects, I still have problems grasping what a mammoth undertaking the finished film represents. However, I had a problem with the storyline, so being a long time fan I concluded “Why not just email Neil.”
So here it is having seen the film only once, I was unclear on what we where supposed to take away from it. By which I mean: “The Hero-Beowulf” the last of the great heroes ends up being as weak and flawed as all common men are nature. “The Demon-Grendal’s Mother” the last of the pagan deities is denied and destroyed at the end. The Christian religion, which offers an alternative to pagan beliefs is championed by a cowardly murderer whose faith doesn’t protect from the power of the pagan dragon.
So is the point that “all men are weak by nature and doomed by there flaws.” The pagan gods are gone (which is good) since the Christian faith offered no man protection against them. So, in the end we are left with no heroes, no demons, no pagan gods, left only to chose between an impotent faith like Christian or the inherent flawed power of mankind. This seems different from many of your others works which seem to always offer some kind of alternative “meta-physical / supernatural” notion outside our common understanding.
That’s pretty much it. By the way thanks in advance, for taking the time to read this and I look forward to a reply if you get a chance (even if the reply is “it’s just a bloody movie not a belief system).
Thanks;
Bryce Southard
I think one of the most interesting things about creating art is that once it's out there, people are free to make their minds up about what you did, which means that your take on the plot is as valid as mine (particularly because I have all the other drafts and the cut scenes still in my head). But no, that wasn't my take on the people or the events at all, or even on the religions of the time.
Of the reviews I've been sent so far I guess that Henry Gee's over at NATURE http://network.nature.com/blogs/user/henrygee/2007/11/19/bigging-up-beowulfand Roz Kaveney's at Strange Horizons http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2007/11/beowulf-comments.shtml would both be closer to my own thoughts about what Roger and I were trying to do in the script, although I don't think that either Roger or I could speak for what Bob Zemeckis intended.
...
Hey Neil, I saw "Beowulf" on Sunday and noticed a few things.1) You wrote the lyrics to "Olaf's Drinking Song", which I got a kick out of. 2) Even Lorraine's name is featured in the credits.and 3) The monster form of Grendel's mother is seen in the reflections of the water and once (wholly) on the ceiling of the underwater cave camouflaging with the gold treasure cluttered up there with it. Am I correct? Or was I just seeing things that weren't there? Thanks, Ken
You're perfectly correct.
pretty cool! I'm going to have to check that one out.
I read Beowulf when I was a teenager, before I HAD too. I was just that weird a kid.
Did you read LOTR before you found Beowulf?
The Professor had much to say about Beowulf and even did his own translation which we have around here somewhere.
After. I read it because I knew he'd done a translation--probably from the biography I read.
Glad I finally made it over to bookmoot, btw, 2 months after kidlit!