Grímur Jónsson Thorkelín (8 October 1752 – 4 March 1829) was an Icelandic–Danish-Norwegian scholar, who became the National Archivist of Norway and Denmark and Professor of Antiquities at

Østfold University College Østfold University College (, HiØ) is a University college (Scandinavia), university college in Østfold, Østfold county, Norway. It has campuses in Fredrikstad and Halden, and has around 7000 students (as of 2017) and 550 employees (as of 20 ...

. In 1786, he travelled to

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

in order to search for documents relating to medieval Danish-English contacts and Anglo-Saxon manuscripts 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 , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

epic poem ''

Beowulf ''Beowulf'' (; ) is an Old English poetry, Old English poem, an Epic poetry, epic in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 Alliterative verse, alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and List of translat ...

'' and made another copy himself. Matthews did not know Old English or the manuscript's

insular script Insular script is a Middle Ages, medieval script (styles of handwriting), script system originating in Ireland that spread to England and continental Europe under the influence of Hiberno-Scottish mission, Irish Christianity. Irish missionaries ...

, and so copied what he saw, not always rendering correctly; Thorkelin, on the other hand, had knowledge of Old English which led him to introduce various emendations where he thought the text was incorrect. 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 (The Academy) 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, and other ...

in 1790. Under a commission from the Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic government, Thorkelin had prepared ''Beowulf'' for publication by 1807. During the Battle of Copenhagen (1807) his house was burned and demolished due to fire, and the text (on which he had spent 20 years) was lost. The manuscripts survived, however, and Thorkelin began again. The poem was eventually published in 1815. Thorkelin was the first scholar to make a full translation of the poem, into Latin. The Thorkelín transcriptions are now an important textual source for ''Beowulf'', as the original manuscript's margins have suffered from deterioration and vandalism throughout the 18th, 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 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" and lists a number of errors in Thorkelín's edition and translation, many of which were pointed out by contemporary scholars.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 Academic staff of the University of Copenhagen 1752 births 1829 deaths Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Translators from Old English Icelandic Latinists

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