List of translations and artistic depictions of Beowulf

Beowulf is an Old English heroic epic poem of anonymous authorship. Its creation dates to between the 8th[1] and the 11th century, the only surviving manuscript dating to circa 1010.[2] At 3182 lines, it is notable for its length. It has risen to national epic status in England.[3]

Beowulf has been adapted a number of times in cinema, on the stage, and in books. In 2003, the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies published Marijane Osborn's annotated list of over 300 translations and adaptations.[4]

Poet John Dryden's categories of translation have influenced how scholars discuss variation between translations and adaptations.[5] In the Preface to Ovid’s Epistles (1680) Dryden proposed three different types of translation:

metaphrase [...] or turning an author word for word, and line by line, from one language into another’; ‘paraphrase [...] or translation with latitude, where the author is kept in view by the translator so as never to be lost, but his words are not so strictly followed as his sense, and that, too, is admitted to be amplified but not altered’; and ‘imitation [...] where the translator – if he has not lost that name – assumes the liberty not only to vary from the words and sense, but to forsake them both as he sees occasion; and taking only some general hints from the original, to run division on the ground-work, as he pleases.[5]

The works listed below may fall in to one or more of these categories.