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Dec. 15 (UPI) -- A Pennsylvania library revealed a copy of Chauncey Brewster Tinker's classic Beowulf was recently returned after being checked out 54 years earlier. The Sewickley Public Library said in an Instagram post that Beowulf was checked out in January 1969 and wasn't returned until this month. The overdue book would have accrued nearly $1,000 in fines under the 5-cent-per-day policy of the late 1960s. "In reality, we would have charged the cost of this item since it's been gone so long. That means the borrower would owe....$0.98, which is how much it cost to purchase the title...

Leicester University has denied it is dropping literary giant Geoffrey Chaucer for being 'too white' after proposing replacement modules focused on race and gender. Plans have emerged to shelve The Canterbury Tales and Beowulf - two of the most important works in English literature - in favour of a 'decolonised' curriculum. The English faculty has been told that the foundational texts could be replaced by more popular works - but Leicester said this wasn't down to their 'whiteness.' Dr Christine Rauer, a lecturer at the University of St Andrews, told MailOnline: 'It's hard to see why race, ethnicity, sexuality and...

Beowulf: A New TranslationThe first thing I need to tell you is that you have to read it now. No, I don't care if you've read Beowulf (the original) before. No, I don't care if you loved it/hated it, if it traumatized you, if it ruined and/or energized the English language for you, or ruined you for translations or whatever. I don't care what you think of when you think of Beowulf in any of its hundreds of other translations because this — this — version, Headley's version, is an entirely different thing. It is its own thing. A remarkable...

Only one person created the monster. That’s according to a team of researchers at Harvard, Dartmouth, and elsewhere, who determined the epic poem “Beowulf,” a staple of literature classes the world over, was written by a sole author more than a millennium ago. The findings of the team, led by Madison Krieger, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, and Joseph Dexter, a Harvard PhD who’s now a Neukom fellow at Dartmouth College, were published April 8 in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, Harvard said in a statement.

Archaeologists have condemned a Tory council leader's threat to dismantle all archaeological controls on development, saying that the regulations are necessary to protect the UK's unique national heritage. Alan Melton, leader of Fenland District Council, dismissed opponents of development as "bunny huggers" in a speech last week. Archaeologists fear his views reflect a national threat to all heritage protection as a result of the government's determination to simplify the planning process to encourage development. The principle that developers must pay for archaeological excavation -- before construction work destroys sites -- has led to a string of major discoveries in the...

Christening spoon found in grave of Saxon king By David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent (Filed: 09/04/2004) An ancient silver spoon buried in the grave of an early Christian king may be one of the earliest christening spoons found in Britain, archaeologists said yesterday. The spoon was discovered alongside a lyre and copper box for holding relics in the burial chamber of the so-called Prince of Prittlewell, a high-ranking aristocrat who lived in Essex 1,400 years ago. When the grave was discovered this year in Southend-on-Sea, archaeologists described it as one of the most important finds in decades. Although the bones had...

Last Updated: Thursday, 5 February, 2004, 13:09 GMT Burial chamber's secrets revealed More details are being released of a Saxon burial chamber unearthed in Essex. The 12-feet-wide, five-feet-high wood-lined chamber - dating from the 7th Century - was crammed with gold coins and ornaments. But the remains of the ancient king have dissolved and experts have not yet been able to identify him. The find in Prittlewell, Southend, is being hailed as a major discovery. Some experts have likened the discovery to the find in 1939 of a Saxon burial ship in Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, one of Britain's most...

10:43am (UK)Fabulous Finds as Saxon King's Tomb Is Unearthed By Tony Jones, PA News The tomb of an East Saxon king containing a fabulous collection of artefacts has been unearthed, it was announced today. The burial chamber, believed to date from the early 7th century, has been described by experts as the richest Anglo-Saxon find since the Sutton Hoo ship burial in Suffolk – one of Britain’s most important archaeological locations. The site in Prittlewell, Southend, Essex was filled with everything a King might need in the afterlife, from his sword and shield to copper bowls, glass vessels and treasures...

A yellowing manuscript by J.R.R.Tolkien discovered in an Oxford library could become one of the publishing sensations of 2003. The 2000 handwritten pages include Tolkien's translation and appraisal of Beowulf, the epic 8th century Anglo-Saxon poem of bravery, friendship and monster-slaying that is thought to have inspired The Lord of the Rings. He borrowed from early English verse to concoct the imaginary language spoken by Arwen, played by Liv Tyler, and other elves in the second film made from the Rings books, The Two Towers. A US academic, Michael Drout, found the Tolkien material by accident in a box of...

There’s more to J. R. R. Tolkien than wizards and hobbits. The author of “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” was also an Oxford University professor specializing in languages like Old Norse and Old English. “Beowulf” was an early love, and a kind of Rosetta Stone to his creative work. His study of the poem, which he called “this greatest of the surviving works of ancient English poetic art,” informed his thinking about myth and language.

Almost 90 years after JRR Tolkien translated the 11th-century poem Beowulf, The Lord of the Rings author's version of the epic story is to be published for the first time in an edition which his son Christopher Tolkien says sees his father "enter[ing] into the imagined past" of the heroes. Telling of how the Geatish prince Beowulf comes to the aid of Danish king Hroðgar, slaying the monster Grendel and his mother before - spoiler alert - being mortally wounded by a dragon years later, Beowulf is is the longest epic poem in Old English, and is dated to the...

Although the story of Beowulf centres around the heroic exploits of the Scandinavians, it found fame in the epic poem written in Old English by an Anglo-Saxon bard. The poem, which is 3,000 lines long, is testimony to the historic links between the Norse and the Anglo-Saxons, some of whom emigrated from southern Scandinavia. It tells the tale of Beowulf, a Geat warrior from modern-day Scandinavia, who travels to Denmark to help King Hrothgar defend his magnificent hall of Heorot. Beowulf kills the monster Grendel, saving the Danes from his murderous attacks, then defeats the fiend's mother and is later...

The foundations of a spectacular Anglo-Saxon feasting hall, a place where a king and his warriors would have gathered for days of drinking and eating -- as vividly described in the poem Beowulf -- have been found inches below the village green of Lyminge in Kent. There was one last celebration by the light of flickering flames at the site, 1,300 years after the hall was abandoned, as archaeologists marked the find by picking out the outline of the hall in candles, lighting up the end-of-excavation party. Heaps of animal bones buried in pits around the edge of the hall...

It's been a  few years since the release of the film The Thirteenth Warrior. It was a rarity: an intelligent actioner. Directed by Michael Crichton and based on his novel Eaters of the Dead, it was a retelling and rationalization of the ancient Beowulf legend. In Crichton's version, the monsters of legend comprise a tribe of human cannibals preying on Viking settlements. The story is told through the eyes of an educated Arab visitor who has traveled to the far north out of curiosity and wanderlust. He witnesses an attack by the cannibals in which the Vikings panic and run...

Anti-Christian Crusade - Beowulf is the latest installment in Hollywood’s attempt to reconfigure history By now, the oft-recurring negative portrayals of Christianity in major Hollywood movies have become hackneyed and predictable. The recent rendition of Beowulf only reinforced this trend. The same subtle depictions and motifs present in movies from decades past were once again present, a favorite being the attempt to try to depict pagans as “open-minded” and “free-spirited” peoples, or, quite anachronistically, as medieval counterparts to the modern, secular, liberal. The idea being that pagan peoples — unencumbered by the suffocating forces of Christianity — were/are happy, passionate...

I’m trying to pull together some thoughts on Robert Zemeckis’s “Beowulf,” though at this point I’ve only seen the film once and don’t have much more than a gut reaction to offer. It strikes me as Zemeckis’s darkest and most misanthropic film to date — to the extent that he’s even banished a human presence from the final product, completing a process that began with the violently distorted bodies of “Death Becomes Her” and the desperate flight from human society in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” and “Forrest Gump.” In tone, I think it’s closest to “Contact,” extending that film’s satire...

Debbie Schlussel: Early Movie Review: 3-D Spectacle "Beowulf" is Fun "300" as Played by WWE Characters By Debbie Schlussel It's definitely not for kids. And I didn't care for the right-in-your-face naked CGI rear ends of Beowulf (Ray Winstone) and Grendel's Mother (a skank played by a skank--Angelina Jolie). But I thoroughly enjoyed "Beowulf"--the 3-D marvel, in theaters tomorrow (Friday). And, yes, guys, this movie is for you. Dragons, fire, monsters, kings, warriors, swords, damsels in distress--this has all those and more. It's the story of the swashbuckling, but exaggeratingly braggadocious, fair-haired warrior Beowulf who saves Danish King Hrothgar's (Anthony...

Olde English meets new technology in 'Beowulf' BY JOE STRIKESunday, November 11th 2007, 4:00 AM Beowulf, voiced and motion-capture-acted by Ray Winstone Beowulf faces down Grendel's mother, Angelina Jolie (also below). When Robert Zemeckis' "Beowulf" opens Friday, it'll be moviegoers' first opportunity since last spring's "300" to ogle well-muscled, barely clothed men of war. Like that earlier film, "Beowulf" is set long ago and far away, when men were men and uniforms were skimpy. Thanks to modern technology, "Beowulf's" bare-chested hot bods are buffed to the max without the benefit of steroids. The cast of "300" had to endure...

An angry parent has blasted the East Penn School District for requiring its students to read books he said are "full of filthy vulgarity." Richard Jones of Upper Milford confronted the school board Monday about some of the books on his 15-year-old son's 10th-grade summer reading list at Emmaus High School, saying they're trash. Following its standard practice, the board limited Jones to three minutes and didn't respond to his criticism during the meeting. But later, board President Ann Thompson said, "We listened carefully and it is being investigated carefully."

The funny side of `Beowulf' BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on Nov. 2, 1997.) I believe that we parents must encourage our children to become educated, so they can get into a good college that we cannot afford. I try to help my son, Rob, with his schooling, but over the years this has become more difficult. Back when he was dealing with basic educational issues such as why the sky is blue and what a duck says, I always knew the correct answers (''It doesn't matter'' and ''Moo''). But when Rob got into...