'Beowulfo', 'Geatas' and 'Heoroto': An Appraisal of the Earliest Renderings of Beowulf in Spain

Abstract

Back in 1934, Beowulf entered the Spanish editorial world. Manuel Vallvé published in Barcelona a retelling of this Old English poem not intending it for scholars or professors, but rather for children. Ever since then and up to 1975, the year of General Franco’s death, two translations of Beowulf, as well as a second version for kids were published in Spain. These texts are indirect indicators of the evolution of medieval English studies in this country and provide useful insights into the socio-historical background in which they were written. In the present paper I intend to contextualize these four texts in their ideological background. I will show how the Spanish versions of Beowulf were (un)consciously used by their authors mainly in two ways: either as a response to the dominant ideology, or as channels of transmission and reinforcement of the political establishment. Such a reappraisal has not been made up to now, and I consider it is badly needed given the level of maturity reached by Old English studies in English Departments at Spanish universities at the beginning of the twenty-first century.