hey, i saw in your about me page that you like old english epic poetry. do you have any recommendations for someone who doesn't know anything about it? 👉👈
not to sound basic but my absolute fave piece of old english epic poetry is beowulf! it's such a fascinating text and i feel like it's a really great place to start!! and you can see how tolkien was inspired by it! grendel and the dragon will feel v familiar lmao. tolkien even did his own prose translation which is deffo worth checking out! seamus heaney's version is good too, especially as it preserves the verse element!
unfortunately lots of epic poetry wasn't recorded or has been lost in time. fragments of 'waldere' are still around and heorot.dk offers a modern translation alongside the old english. and via that same site you can also read 'the battle of finnesburh'. tennyson did a translation of 'the battle of brunanburh' that's available via representative poetry online too! whilst putting this list together i also came across the old english poetry project run by rutgers university and that gives soooooo many more examples you could look at if you're interested!! i hope this helps! feel free to dm me if you wanna talk more about it though!! 🥰
