Enlarge / Illustration of Beowulf about to battle a fire-breathing dragon. A new study using a statistical technique called stylometry provides further evidence the poem was the work of a single author. (credit: Public domain) The epic poem Beowulf is the most famous surviving work of Old English literature. For decades, scholars have hotly debated both when the poem was composed and whether it was the work of a single anonymous author ("the Beowulf poet").