Tolkien's Beowulf

[Child of the 7th Age]

Here is a quote from an earlier post that was supplied by the Squatter of Amon Rudh:

Some of you may remember a now somewhat hoary thread in which Dininziliel and I discussed the intended publication of Tolkien's two translations of Beowulf. According to their editor, Professor Michael Drout, the prose translation was due to be published last year and the verse version, which I'm sure will be of interest to fans of Tolkien, should be released this year. The prose translation never appeared and the release of the verse translation seems ever more doubtful. I may have found out why.

Not long ago, my M.A. supervisor ran into Professor Drout at a conference. Apparently his permission to print the work has been withdrawn by the Tolkien estate. I don't know why that is, but it was suggested to me that the estate's executor might be hoping for a more lucrative offer from another source. Hopefully that's just a rumour and Professor Drout, who is himself a respected Old English scholar, will be allowed to publish eventually. I would hope that the estate can be persuaded that a philological work such as this should be edited by an established philologist, and that in this case the potential scholarly kudos should outweigh any hypothetical cash. I would also hope that however matters transpire we shall see the Tolkien Beowulf on the shelves very soon.

I'm not sure where I heard this, but I also remember reading that the Tolkien family was recoiling from all the publicity unleashed by the movie and did not want to go forward with publication at that time, thinking it would only cause more hoopla.

I am a little concerned because of the history of certain other Tolkien manuscripts that we know exist, but which have never appeared in public. It's my understanding that a small group of Elvish scholars (including Carl Hostetter) have permission to publish the manuscripts related to linguistics yet have chosen not to do so. Just a few things have seen the light in Vinyar Tengwar. This has caused some bad blood and argument between different linguistics scholars, and caused frustration for many who'd like to see those various grammars, papers, etc.

I hope that the Beowulf manuscript doesn't suffer a similar fate in being inaccessible to the public, for whatever reason.

Does anyone have an update on the fate of Beowulf?