"Anglo-Saxon Poetry" is a chapter in Wright's book Essays on Subjects Connected with the Literature, Popular Superstitions, and History of England in the Middle Ages (2 vols.), in vol. 1, pp. 1-30. Volume 1 of Essays on Subjects … is xii + 304 pp. The book was first published in 1846; see separate entry. This 1969 reprint edition is given its own entry (unlike reprints of books that have a more continuous printing history) because of the very significant recontextualization implicit in reviving, now for an American audience, an English work over 120 years old, in such a way that readers may presume its authority rather than seeing it primarily as a document of interest for intellectual history.

The essay contains a summary of Beowulf (pp. 15-24), including five passages in translation alongside the Old English of Kemble's 2nd edition (very slightly altered), and an additional translated passage with Old English on p. 27.

The summary begins:

Beowulf, like Hercules, seeks glory only by clearing the world of monsters and oppressors. A report had reached him that the court of Hrothgar, a Danish king, was infested by an unearthly monster, the grendel, who nightly entered Heorot, the royal hall, and slew the warriors in their sleep. The emulation of the Geátish prince was raised,—he felt himself equal to the task of combating the depredator; for, as the story tells, he possessed the strenth of thirty men, and, with a chosen band of his followers, he embarked for the Danish coast. (15-16)

And ends:

The king loads him with gifts, and he returns to his own country. This completes the first part of the poem, which reaches to the twenty-eighth canto; the latter part of which, with the whole of the twenty-ninth, and the beginning of the thirtieth, appear to have perished by mutilation of the manuscript. Afterwards we have a new story; that of the last expedition of Beowulf, now old and monarch over his people, against a fire-drake which molested them, and of his death in the encounter. (24)

The passages given in verse-by-verse translation alongside the Old English total around 110 lines. They are (1) the sea-voyage of the Geats to Daneland, (2) the beginning of the coast guard's challenge upon their arrival, (3) the conclusion of the coast guard's speech, (4) Beowulf's assurance to Hrothgar that if he fails, no funeral will be required, and the request that he send Beowulf's war-gear to Hygelac, (5) a generous selection from the confrontation between Unferth and Beowulf, and Hrothgar's reply to Beowulf's inquiry about his rest on the morning following Grendel's mother's attack. This last passage reads:

"Hrothgar spoke,
the helm of the Scyldings:—
'Ask not after happiness;
sorrow is renewed
to the people of the Danes;
dead is Æschere,
Yrmenlafe's
elder brother;
the partner of my secrets,
and my counsellor,
who stood at my shoulder
when we in battle
guarded our helmets,
when troops clashed,
dashed together their helms.
Ever should an earl
be noble
as Æschere was. (23-24; lack of final quotation marks sic)

A few pages later Wright translates the opening three lines of the poem (27).

BAM.