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The Curse of Beowulf is Dead!
The curse of Beowulf has finally been laid to rest, reports UW – Madison Professor of English John D. Niles. Ever since the third, revised version of Frederic Klaeber’s scholarly edition of Beowulf appeared in print in 1950, the same story has repeated itself with terrifying regularity. One or another aging specialist in Old English literature would announce his intention to issue a fourth edition of that distinguished work, would spend years laboring on the task, and then would die before completing it. Until 2008! In the spring of that year Klaeber’s Beowulf, fourth edition, co-edited by Niles along with R.D. Fulk of Indiana University and Robert E. Bjork of Arizona State University, appeared in print. Totalling 687 pages in length, this book represents a complete revision of Klaeber’s edition in the light of relevant scholarship published during the past sixty years.
![[photo] John Niles](photos/beowulfmed.jpg)
This past summer Klaeber’s Beowulf, fourth edition, published by the University of Toronto Press, was awarded a prize by the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists for the best scholarly edition of an Old English text published during 2007-2008. In a 16-page review article of the book that appeared in the Journal of English and Germanic Philology, this monumental publication has been hailed as “a triumph for a triumverate.” The curse of Beowulf may have been mighty enough to strike down any scholar working solo, but this brave trio of Americans (all of whom are alive and well, at last report) have put an end to it at last.
Niles is the Frederic G. Cassidy Professor of Humanities at UW – Madison. He has published five books on Old English literature in the past three years. He is looking forward to hosting the biennial conference of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists here in Madison in August, 2111.