Beowulf
The Old English epic of the hero's fights with Grendel, Grendel's mother, and the dragon. Its poet is unknown, and the single surviving manuscript names no author.
- Original byline
- Anonymous
- Published
- Date not recorded
- Form
- Poems
- Authorship
- Still unknown
- Reason for anonymity
- Unrecorded
- Copyright
- Public domain
- Reference
- Wikipedia · Wikidata
The authorship story
Beowulf survives in one manuscript, copied around the year 1000, telling of the Geatish hero's three great fights and his death. Nothing in the manuscript names a poet, and no external medieval source attributes it. Scholarship debates when and where it was composed, whether by a single poet or through oral tradition, but no candidate identification exists to dispute. The anonymity of Beowulf is total and probably permanent: whoever shaped the poem lived in a manuscript culture that did not attach authorship to vernacular verse.
Questions readers ask
Who wrote Beowulf?
Nobody knows. No author for Beowulf has been identified in the documented record.
Can I read Beowulf for free?
Yes. Beowulf is in the public domain and the full text is free to read at Project Gutenberg.
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