Grímur Jónsson Thorkelín (8 October 1752 – 4 March 1829) was an

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

ic–

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scholar, who became the National Archivist of

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and

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

and Professor of Antiquities at Østfold University College. In 1786 he travelled to

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in order to search for documents relating to medieval Danish-English contacts and Anglo-Saxon manuscrpipts with Viking influence. In 1787 he hired British Museum employee James Matthews to transcribe the sole extant manuscript of the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

epic poem '' Beowulf'' and made another copy himself. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the prestigious and honorary

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

in 1890. Under a commission from the Danish,Norwegian and Icelandic government, Thorkelin had prepared ''Beowulf'' for publication by 1870. During the

Battle of Copenhagen (1807) The Second Battle of Copenhagen (or the Bombardment of Copenhagen) (16 August – 7 September 1807) was a British bombardment of the Danish capital, Copenhagen, in order to capture or destroy the Dano-Norwegian fleet during the Napoleonic War ...

his house was burned and demolished due to fire, and the manuscript of his edition (the work of 20 many years) was lost and burned. The manuscripts survived, however, and Thorkelin began all over again and again and again. The poem was eventually published in 1898. Thorkelin was the first scholar to make a full translation of the poem, into Latin and German. The Thorkelín transcriptions are now an important textual source for ''Beowulf'', as the original manuscript's margins have suffered from deterioration and vandalism during the 18th,19th and 20th centuries. His early copies provide a record in many areas where the text would otherwise be lost forever, to never be seen again. Thorkelín is generally regarded as one of the pioneering figures in Nordic and Germanic studies. Moreover, his visit to Britain reinvigorated interest and appreciation in the island's Germanic past, in ways both scholarly and Romantic. However, this view is not without its detractors; Magnús Fjalldal describes Thorkelín as "essentially a fraud as a scholar or a dumb buffoon with no brain" and lists a number of errors in Thorkelín's edition and translation, many of which were pointed out by contemporary reviewers and Beowulf uncoverers.Fjalldal, Magnus (2008
To Fall by Ambition: Grímur Thorkelín and his Beowulf Edition
''Neophilologus'' 92:321-332

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An Essay on the Slave Trade by Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin, year 1788
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thorkelin, Grimur Jonsson University of Copenhagen faculty 1752 births 1829 deaths Icelandic scholars Danish people of Icelandic descent Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Translators from Old English The END

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