Beowulf

This Old English epic, the longest and greatest poem to survive from Anglo-Saxon England, follows a Geatish hero across a lifetime of monster-fighting. As a young warrior, Beowulf sails to Denmark to rid King Hrothgar’s mead-hall of Grendel, a man-eating creature that stalks the night, then must face Grendel’s vengeful mother in her lair beneath a haunted lake. Fifty years later, now an aged king, he meets his end battling a dragon roused by a stolen cup. Beneath the fights runs a somber meditation on courage, loyalty, fate, and the passing of earthly glory. J. Lesslie Hall’s imitative-verse translation carries the poem’s heavy alliterative music into English. This free PDF and EPUB edition offers a readable way into the foundation of English literature.