From Epic Characters to a Movie Transformation: Tracing the Journey of Beowulf from Old English Poetry to Contemporary Motion Picture

Abstract

Beowulf, the tale of a celebrated hero and slayer of monsters, is the one of the finest and oldest epic poems of English literature. This poem was finally written down by an unknown poet after being passed on orally from one generation to another for many years. Beowulf has been translated from Old English to contemporary English by many scholars and has also been an inspiration for numerous films and games. Beowulf gives vivid descriptions of ancient Germanic people, an era of hero-worshipping, supernatural beliefs and pagan rituals. It offers a re-living of the centuries-long phase of transformation of Europe. In this magnificent tale of war between ‘the good and the bad’; the human and the monster; the hero and the villain; the saviour and the killer and the stronger and the strongest, there are several characters which stand out. Sturla Gunnarsson’s Grendel and Beowulf (2005) and Robert Zemeckis’ Beowulf (2007) are well-directed movies based on this famous epic. These movies borrow the central idea and characters from the epic while at the same time, also open broader doorways to view and interpret the text through variegated lens. This paper aims to compare and contrast the portrayal of the four important characters of the epic with these two movies. This paper will try to explore the inconsistencies in the depiction of these major characters of this poem in the contemporary films.

Keywords

• beowulf
• monster
• film