Why should anyone aside from specialist historians and philologists read Beowulf This book presents a passionate literary argument for Beowulf as a searching and subtle exploration of the human presence. Seamus Heaney praised Beowulf as a work of the greatest imaginative vitality how is that true The poems current scholarly obsessions and its popular reception have obscured the fact that this untitled and anonymous 3182line poem from AngloSaxon England is a powerful and enduring work of world