Beowulf

Seamus Heaney has termed Beowulf, with its four-squareness and immense emotional credibility, a “sublime” work. Composed toward the end of the first millennium, when Scandinavian heroes were revered by their people, Beowulf is the epic narrative of the adventures of Beowulf, a Scandinavian hero who saves the Danes from the seemingly invincible monster Grendel and, later, from Grendel's mother. He then returns to his own country and dies in old age in a vivid fight against a dragon. In its contours as much remote as familiar at the beginning of the twenty-first century, this story summons power to Heaney’s poetry from deep beneath its surface.