Beowulf versus The Lord of the Rings

[susanmcgee48176]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2007/11/20/beowulf/print.html




Terrific and very insightful story at salon.com..

Please let me know what you think. Susan



"Beowulf" vs. "The Lord of the Rings"
One is a living universe, the other a 3-D voyage to schlockville. A 
great essay by Tolkien helps us understand why. 
By Gary Kamiya

Nov. 20, 2007 | Robert Zemeckis' new film "Beowulf" gives a whole new 
meaning to the phrase "the sublime and the ridiculous." Zemeckis took 
the oldest and most important text of our ur-language, and turned it 
into a 3-D Disneyland ride so cheesy he should have called it "Anglo-
Saxons of the Caribbean." Of course, there's nothing new or 
surprising about this. Hollywood has been profaning history and 
literature since long before Cecil B. DeMille cast Charlton Heston as 
Moses. If the Bible isn't sacred, why should the oldest poem in our 
ancestral language be?