Beowulf

The story of Beowulf, although thousands of years old, is still loved by many all over the world. This recording of a new musical telling of the story, composed by Toby Young, blurs traditional sense of the genre of classical music by merging it with folk and popular music. This fusion is what makes Beowulf a fantastic story.The greatest versions of the story are not the simple good verses bad, but the ones which involve slight ambiguous points; ones which allow the reader/listener to make his/her mind up about what is exactly going on. The combination of Toby Young’s score and Jennifer Thorp’s libretto create this ambiguity perfectly.

This monograph is the first book-length comprehensive textual analysis of the Beowulf saga as an Indo-European epic. It provides a detailed reading of the epic in conjunction with ancient legal and cultural practices that allow for a new understanding of this classic work.