“Wherever there’s a strong medieval studies department there’s usually a lot of interest in oral poetry and in the reconstruction of lost oral traditions,” says Bagby, who was invited by the university’s Medieval Studies Program.
Bagby, who has been performing the poem in Old English for 20 years, has been interested in the famous tale of heroes and monsters since he was a child.
“In most cultures of the world, stories are transmitted orally and are only written down later on,” he adds. “That’s the case with the 'Beowulf' epic. It was probably transmitted for hundreds of years orally before being written down by Christian monks in about the year 1000.”
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