Beowulf

Overview & Synopsis

Beowulf
is an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines,
set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of
Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single manuscript known as the Nowell
Codex. Its composition by an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet is dated between the 8th
and the early 11th century.The manuscript was badly damaged by a fire that swept
through a building housing a collection of Medieval manuscripts assembled by Sir
Robert Bruce Cotton. The poem fell into obscurity for decades, and its existence
did not become widely known again until it was printed in 1815 in an edition
prepared by the Icelandic-Danish scholar Gr�mur Jonsson Thorkelin.