J.R.R. Tolkien translated the Old English poem Beowulf, and his translation and commentary were published posthumously in 2014.
Tolkien was a leading scholar of Old English, and Beowulf was central to his academic interests. The poem tells of the hero Beowulf’s fights with Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and a dragon. Tolkien’s prose translation preserves the narrative while making the poem accessible to modern readers.
The 2014 volume, edited by Christopher Tolkien, also includes Tolkien’s extensive commentary and the story “Sellic Spell.” It was not a newly written translation made in 2014; Tolkien had completed the work decades earlier.
Tolkien’s famous 1936 lecture “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” argued that the poem should be valued as a work of art, not treated merely as evidence for historical reconstruction.