The Old English epic Beowulf remains familiar to readers through its editions and translations as well as its more varied transformations into other media. These three types of Beowulfiana represent a massive corpus of between 500 to 700 works according to entries in Hans Sauer’s 205 Years of Beowulf: Translations and Adaptations (2005-2010) and the Beowulf’s Afterlives Bibliographic Database; though, as medievalists, we tend to focus on the first two categories rather than the last. New versions of the story feature in all forms of modern mediævalisms, yet (as is true with most medieval texts) research continues to focus primarily on depictions of Beowulf on screen (about 40 examples according to the Internet Movie Database). We hope in this blog and through our outreach efforts to expand our view of Beowulf’s reception and (re)interpretation by creative artists and look more deeply at the text’s wider use. We are particularly interested in explorations of the adaptation and/or appropriation of the text, its characters, and its themes in less explored media. For instance, traditional literary texts (such as novels, short stories, and poems) include at least 200 works according to the Internet Speculative Fiction Database and much more are recorded by the Beowulf’s Afterlives Bibliographic Database. In addition, the comics include at least 300 examples according to the Grand Comics Database. Besides these, there remain many new and neglected works on film, television, entertainment consoles, and the Internet. Still other media (such as musical theater) remain largely uncataloged.
