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 atØstfold University College.

In 1786, he travelled toEngland 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 theOld English epic poemBeowulf and made another copy himself. Matthews did not know Old English or the manuscript'sinsular script, 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.^[1] He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the prestigious and honoraryAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1790.^[2]

Under a commission from the Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic government, Thorkelin had preparedBeowulf for publication by 1807. During theBattle 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.^[3] Thorkelin was the first scholar to make a full translation of the poem, into Latin.

The Thorkelin transcriptions are now an important textual source forBeowulf, 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.

Thorkelin is generally regarded as one of the pioneering figures inNordic andGermanic studies. Moreover, his visit to Britain reinvigorated interest and appreciation in the island's Germanic past, in ways both scholarly andromantic. However, this view is not without its detractors; Magnús Fjalldal describes Thorkelin as "essentially a fraud as a scholar" and lists a number of errors in Thorkelin's edition and translation, many of which were pointed out by contemporary scholars.^[4]

• G. J. Thorkelin,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.
• The Thorkelin transcripts of Beowulf in facsimile / edited by Kemp Malone. Copenhagen : Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1951. (Early English manuscripts in facsimile; volume 1)

• Thorkelín's Latin translation of Beowulf (html format)
• An Essay on the Slave Trade by Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin, year 1788

• Academic staff of the University of Copenhagen
• 1752 births
• 1829 deaths
• Icelandic scholars
• Danish people of Icelandic descent
• Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• Translators from Old English
• Icelandic Latinists

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