Tolkien’s Adaptations

Apart from translations, Beowulf has had its fair share of adaptations as well, with J.R.R. Tolkien having some accredited to himself. For the scope of this digital essay, it will make use of Tolkien’s ‘Beowulf and the Monsters’ and ‘Sellic Spell,’ where Tolkien accentuates the monster motif on Grendel, Beowulf, and the people of Heorot.

Tolkien’s approach to this effect can be appreciated in both ‘Beowulf and the Monsters’ and ‘Sellic Spell,’ where he, like Heaney and Meyer, makes ample use of rhetoric and stylistic devices to highlight the monstrosity of his characters. In the former, Tolkien uses the cacophony “gnawed” to describe the way in which Grendel attacked and killed the thirty thanes, while similarly he uses the cacophony “grappled” to describe how Beowulf fights Grendel. With these harsh sounding words Tolkien connects how his characters behave in a similar, monster like, fashion. Furthermore, Tolkien describes Beowulf’s call to action with a simile in reference to an animal, as Professor Dunai highlights: “Tolkien does include the folklore-inspired bear-man Beowulf in the lines ‘As bear aroused from his mountain lair[...]’;” (Dunai 2021, p. 88-89) A creature that would similarly gnaw at their pray. This representation of his characters is one which finds itself present in ‘Sellic Spell,’ where Tolkien uses metonymies for both Beowulf and Grendel, naming them ‘Beewolf’ and ‘Grinder’ — a bear/wolf and a tool of destruction, respectively. These associations with animals thus, as Yang notes: “…subverts the heroic image of humanity” (Yang 2013, p.12) However, Tolkien’s adaptations not only show Beowulf and Grendel as monsters, but the humans in them as well. This is seen in how they questionably receive the hero in a rather doubtful and unappreciative way. This rhetoric can be attributed to Tolkien’s environment, that of a British imperial nation at war where racial theories of Anglo-Saxon superiority drove it. (Smol 1994, p. 98) This is then reinforced by Hrothgar’s epithet description of Grendel, where he depicts him as “[a]n ogre called Grinder…” Thus, Tolkien delivers all of Beowulf’s characters as monsters in their own way.