Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin
Encyclopedia
Grímur Jónsson Thorkelín (1752-1829) was an Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

ic -Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 scholar, who became the National Archivist of Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 and Professor of Antiquities at Copenhagen University.

In 1786 he travelled to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 in order to search for documents relating to mediaeval Danish-English contacts. In 1787 he hired British Museum employee James Matthews to transcribe the sole extant manuscript of the Old English
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...

 epic poem Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...

and made another copy himself. Using his own copy of this, in 1815 he published the poem, being commissioned to do so by the Danish government. He was also the first scholar to make a full translation of the poem.

The Thorkelín transcriptions are now an important textual source for Beowulf, as the original manuscript's margins have suffered from deterioration during the 19th and 20th centuries. His early copies provide a record in many areas where the text would otherwise be lost forever.

Thorkelín is generally regarded as one of the pioneering figures in Nordic
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....

 and Germanic
German studies
German studies is the field of humanities that researches, documents, and disseminates German language and literature in both its historic and present forms. Academic departments of German studies often include classes on German culture, German history, and German politics in addition to the...

 studies. Moreover, his visit to Britain reinvigorated interest and appreciation in the island's Germanic past, in ways both scholarly and Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

. However, this view is not without its detractors; Magnús Fjaldall describes Thorkelín as "essentially a fraud as a scholar" and lists a number of errors in Thorkelín's edition and translation, many of which were pointed out by contemporary reviewers.

Further reading

  • G. J. Thorkelín, De Danorum rebus gestis secul. III & IV : Poëma Danicum dialecto Anglosaxonica : ex Bibliotheca Cottoniana Musaei Britannici / edidit versione lat. et indicibus auxit Grim. Johnson Thorkelin, 1815.

External links

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