Beowulf

By Gummere

Before King Arthur there was Beowulf, a young lord of great renown. When Beowulf hears that the monster Grendel is terrorizing a neighbor state, he and his men travel there to rid the land of this terrible monster. Beowulf battles Grendel; Grendel's mother, who is even more terrible than her son; and a dragon. These are tales of bravery and pride, boasting and accomplishment. After reading these grand adventures you'll understand why this epic remains one of England's National Treasures!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wilder Publications
• Release date: Apr 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781627556828

Reviews for Beowulf

[terpsichoreus · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

There are different ways to translate, and it comes down to what you want to get across. Most creative authors have such a strong voice and sense of story that they will overwhelm the original author. As Bentley wrote of Pope's Iliad: "It is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope, but you must not call it Homer".Sometimes this sort of indirect translation is useful in itself, such as during the transition of the Renaissance from Italy to Britain. Many of the British poets rewrote Italian ...more There are different ways to translate, and it comes down to what you want to get across. Most creative authors have such a strong voice and sense of story that they will overwhelm the original author. As Bentley wrote of Pope's Iliad: "It is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope, but you must not call it Homer".Sometimes this sort of indirect translation is useful in itself, such as during the transition of the Renaissance from Italy to Britain. Many of the British poets rewrote Italian sonnets into English, and though the line of descent was unquestionable, the progeny was it's own work. Another example might be the digestion of Wuxia and Anime into films such as Tarantino's or The Matrix (though Tarantino's sense of propriety is often suspect).However, in these cases, we can hardly call the new work a translation of the old. You are not experiencing the old work but the inspiration it has wrought. Beowulf is just this sort of translation, capturing the excitement and passion of the story, but obliterating the details which make the work interesting to students of history or literary theory.Heaney's translation is a fun, rollicking epic, able to draw in even uninitiated students, which is no doubt why it is now included in Norton. Unfortunately, it is not a particularly useful tool for teaching the importance of the original work. Heaney severs many connections to the unique world of Beowulf.As the only surviving epic from its time, place, and tradition, Beowulf is a unique vision into a pre-Christian culture outside of the Mediterranean. Though the poem shows Christian revisions, these stand out in stark contrast to the rest of the work, and can usually be easily excised, unlike many pervasive Christian impositions on the 'pagan' cultures.Heaney is not a philologist nor a historian, but a popular poet. He doesn't have the background for conscientious translation, and the clearest sign that his translation is haphazard is the fact that there are no footnotes explaining the difficult decisions that most translators have to make in every line. Heaney also loses much of the alliteration and appositives that marked the artistry of the original.A Beowulf that can exist without context is a Beowulf that has well and truly been separated from its past. Perhaps his translation is suitable for an introduction to the work, but a good professor should be able to teach the original without much difficulty.Then again, perhaps the inclusion of this version in college classes has to do with the fact that college is no longer the path for scholars, but has been given the same equality treatment as art and poetry. College is now meant for your average, half-literate frat boy who only wants a BA so he can be a mid-level retail manager.Heaney's translation certainly suits for them, since it is the easiest version of the story this side of a digital Angelina. It's fun and exciting, certainly worth a read, but doesn't stand up as a translation.

[eoin-311239 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

So, Heaney wins the Nobel, leaves Harvard, and decides to do this. Best seller, agreed new standard, best translation. Why? He’s not an Old English scholar, not a philologist as such. He was already rich and famous.

I have two guesses:
1. He had already written so much of his own work, he was looking into new sources, translation being a good one. Fine, probably true.
2. Revenge. England conquered Ireland, crushing out the native culture and language as best they could for hundreds of years. Early 20th century, Ireland attempts to reclaim language and culture, including political independence. Except where Heaney is from in the North. So, how do you conquer the conqueror hundreds of years later? You take their language and use it against them. Like Joyce, but instead of moving further ahead, he goes back to the beginning. Translates the oldest English there is into 20th century Irish dialect English.

[sloopjonb · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had this book on my shelves for 20 years before reading it. I really shouldn't have left it that long. Heaney's translation brings the old poem to life, blowing off the cobwebs of nearly two hundred years of it being studied rather than read. His translation was contentious, especially with Angl0-Saxon purists, but I have no complaints to make; he manages to make the old words meaningful, and evokes marvellously the atmosphere of a society that was long gone even when the poem was written.Of course one cannot discuss Beowulf without mentioning Tolkien; as Heaney acknowledges, he was the first to treat the poem as literature rather than merely an ancient artefact. Every Tolkien fan should read this; they will understand him much better, and they will find therein the originals of many scenes and phrases in his works.

[tldegray-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A beautiful translation.

[thorold_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The poemBeowulf is a tough sell. Not only has it traditionally been used by English departments around the world to break the spirit of newly-recruited undergraduates (who thought they had signed up for three years of Emily Dickinson and Virginia Woolf, only to find themselves out on the parade-ground practicing their Old English sound-shifts for month after month...), but also, when you get down to it, it turns out to be a poem about a macho muscle-man who spends his time - when not quaffing mead - either ripping monsters limb from limb or swimming long distances in full armour. Told completely straight, without any discernible trace of irony. Well, not exactly my cup of tea...Skimming through the introduction of the Bolton & Wrenn critical text, it turns out that we know surprisingly little about what must be one of the most-studied poems in the canon. It has survived in only one manuscript, the famous "British Museum Cotton Vitellius A XV" (bizarrely, the emperor Vitellius comes into it because it's his bust that stands on top of that particular bookcase). In fact, there are very few Old English texts that survive as multiple copies, so this uniqueness isn't unusual in itself. The manuscript seems to have been written around the year 1000, and textual evidence suggests that it's at least the third generation of copies since the poem was first written down. When and where that was is hotly disputed, but Mercia in the second half of the 8th century is a strong possibility. The action of the poem is set in a pre-Christian past in Denmark and Southern Sweden (with some mention of actual historical figures from the time), whilst the poet is obviously from a Christian background and refers quite freely to the Old Testament. What I found most surprising was to discover that the poem was not conspicuously a "classic" in its own time: we don't have any other contemporary references to it (apart from the "Finnesburg fragment", a single page of MS that seems to come from a different version of part of the same story), and as far as anyone can tell it fell completely off the radar of English literature between the end of the Old English period and the time around 650 years later when the first modern scholars became interested in Old English manuscripts and discovered this poem, bound in with a prose translation of St Augustine. So Beowulf is only part of the history of English literature with hindsight.The Heaney translationSeamus Heaney, of course, saw it as rather more than a philological crossword puzzle or a Boys' Own adventure story, otherwise he wouldn't have bothered with it. He points us in particular at the last part of the poem, where the elderly (70+) hero decides that he owes it to his people to take on one last dragon, even though it will certainly cost him his life. And indeed, the anonymous poet deals with the complex emotions involved here a little less brusquely than he does elsewhere - but this isn't Shakespearean drama, and we shouldn't expect it to be.What Heaney is really interested in, I think, is the poetical challenge of finding something in modern English that has the same magically seductive sound quality as Old English alliterative verse (which always sounds magnificent, even if you haven't a clue what it means...). And, of course, being Seamus Heaney, he decides to imagine the voices of the poem as if they came from the Northern Ireland farmers of his own sound-world, puts these into a slightly looser form of the Old English two-stress half-lines, and succeeds brilliantly. This translation is a poem that you just have to read aloud, even if there's no way that you can find any sympathy for Beowulf as a character.

[antao-3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

(Original Review, 2001-02-20)If you are familiar with the Hindu myth-kitty though, you may also find parallels between “Beowulf” and the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. When Jambavan spends a lot of time telling Hanuman about how great he is, to induce him to jump to Lanka in search of Sita, or Arjun surveys the array of warriors against him, described in some detail, leading to the Bhagavad Gita, or the Pandavas' "advisor" at Draupadi's swayamvar asks the unknown Karna to declare his lineage and rank.In Beowulf, where the eponymous protagonist has to be introduced by his history in order to be considered worthy of being received in Hrothgar's halls, and able to, perhaps, take his chances against Grendel. Thorsten Verblen's, in his model of conspicuous consumption, suggested that in societies, or social conditions, that were not stable a man could only gain status by his reputation and by what he carried with him: his arms, his abilities and his history. It is a theory that applies to the bling culture of hip-hop, where alas, lives can be dramatically shortened, as much as to the Bronze Age and Iron Age world's of chiefdoms and agriculturists versus nomads. Women were acquired by raids, but there was enough spare, or surplus, labour available for ancillary crafts to develop: goldsmithery, ironmongery and the like. In such conditions, a man meeting a stranger or a putative enemy, would be likely to show off his armour and then show off further by talking about who he was, both his history and his lineage. Like Buffaloes sizing each other up before fighting, it may have been a way of reducing the number of fights that had to occur.Let us not forget the fate of Patroclus, who deliberately rode around in Achilles' bling and therefore got caught in a drive-by assassination. Had he been in a Prius instead of his black, silver-wheeled, borrowed SUV, he might have lived...It reminds me of the peaceful moment of the Bhagavad Gita from the Mahabharata just before the great battle of Kurukshetra, though of course Arjuna and Krishna are on the same side.Celtic kingdoms, Saxon kingdoms, Anglo-Norman kingdoms, were ALL European kingdoms. There was no hard border between mainland Britain and the rest of Europe. Kings ruled territories on both sides of the channel in joint jurisdictions. Laws and customs, language, arts and religion were common, in overlapping webs. The Celtic (that is British, or Welsh) and the Saes/Saxon peoples were not 'barbaric'. They were civilised, literate cultures, with highly organised governments, law codes, religion and arts.The group which was 'barbaric' was the 'Normans'. These were a rabble of raiders, adventurers, thieves and pirates, drawn together to loot other peoples. They were illiterate, depending on the monks of those they conquered to keep their records. Their law codes were truly barbaric, vastly inferior to the British and the Saxons, who operated on a system of compensation payments (fines). It was the Normans who imposed amputation, tortures, and increased executions. They were supreme in violence only, inheriting the worst of Viking culture without its balancing qualities, as the Normans were the misfits and rejects. What they were also good at was propaganda. Their bards sang wholly fabricated histories claiming an honourable ancestry for a united people that didn't exist. There were no 'Normans' until the bards constructed the myth of them as the raiders conquests grew successful.This is the 'people' who spawned the British ruling class. The British ruling class keeps books that trace their genealogy proudly 'back to the Conquest'. They were violent thugs, the vermin of Europe, who grabbed and stole, then dressed it all up in myths of propaganda. They haven't changed. Just like the rest of Europe, namely in Portugal...I wonder what the Britons thought about the invading Anglo-Saxons. Were they any better? The difference is, we have very few records to tell us what they thought. The invaders came in sufficient numbers that over a period of centuries their language replaced the native language, and so over time the Brits ended up with a weird sense that the Anglo-Saxon invaders were "Britons", but later Norman invaders were "them", because there weren't enough of them to replace the language of the Anglo-Saxon invaders (although enough to give us 1/3 of the English vocabulary).What did the Britons think about the Saxons (who didn't invade, but simply switch roles from mercenaries to usurpers...)? Actually we know exactly what the British thought of the Saes - they loathed them. See “Armes Prydain” and other works of the time. There was no worse insult than to be called a Saes - Saxon. The native British were culturally superior if only because settlers come as younger sons, or people who are unsuccessful at home, less educated, less cultured. You don't invade and crush natives by singing pretty songs. Compare “Beowulf” with the “Mabinogi” and the gulf is huge - like comparing drinking songs with Shakespeare.It's also inaccurate that the Saes replaced the British. Genetics say otherwise and the story is mixed. In some places it was violent takeover. In others it was trade, marriage, settlement. Coexistence is now the new historical understanding. Brits were mainly herders so held to the high ground and you can still see their place names across 'England' today in higher areas. The Saes were grain farmers who lived on lowland clays so their names survive there. The Saes were not as educated as the Brits. Alfred imported monks from the Cymru (Wales) led by Asser, to teach his people to read and write. Alfred was a visionary, like the later Guillaum le Batard of Normandy. But their peoples were less savoury, especially the Normans who practised genocide to terrify the natives. The whole of Yorkshire was depopulated, half of Pembrokeshire, and a large area of the Scots border. Massacres, or else driven out into destitution. On the second the British ruling class has not changed, still driving people into poverty and homelessness, just like the rest of Europe, namely in Portugal...The English called themselves English from at least the sixth or seventh century on. It was the Normans and their successors who coined the term Anglo Saxon to describe them. All part of the attempt to legitimise their conquest and pretend that they were the rightful rulers of the kingdom and its confiscated estates; and that English history started with them. That's why they promoted the Arthurian myth and tried to pretend they were its heirs - in order to try to write the English out of the story. And why they immediately knocked down the English Abbeys and cathedrals and rebuilt them in their own style.

[deckla_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Maybe Heaney's translation is better, but this slim volume has lots of good supporting information, including a chronology, maps, early critical reactions, notes, a genealogy of the major characters, and a bibliography.

[lovinglit · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This translated version has the Olde English verse written on the left page, and the modern English verse on the right page. As Heaney states in the introduction, he has tried with this translation to keep the language simple and as the original intended the meaning to be. He favoured meaning over rhyme, and as a consequence there is little rhyme. But the rhythm is certainly there and it reads very well. I was surprised at how accessible the story was, and how drawn in I was. There seemed to be some glaringly obvious similarities in storyline to The Hobbit...I am unsure as to whether this has been stated before I came to the conclusion, but is seemed so to me. The parts of the story that did get complicated were the family lineages and connections. But that didn't detract from the legend of Beowulf being as grand and fearsome as ever

[justagirlwithabook · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had to read Beowulf in high school my senior year (we did a bit on the middle ages and its literature). I think I wouldn't have liked this as much as I did if it hadn't been for my instructor. She made the story come to life and provided our class with all sorts of history of the UK (pre-UK) and its countries and people. It was reminiscent in many ways to Odysseus and I enjoyed it overall.

[thornton37814 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Irish author Seamus Heaney provides a readable poetic translation of the epic Beowulf. In the poem readers see a mingling of Christian and pagan traditions. Well-versed Biblical students may even notice parallels between Beowulf and warriors in the Bible. Although the Old English appears on facing pages, my lack of knowledge of Old English makes it impossible for me to determine Heaney's faithfulness to the originals. His introduction and acknowledgement provides some background. He admits to differing opinions with other scholars but the final product seems true to the version I remember from college days while being far more readable. Perhaps more readers will find this classic tale accessible because of Heaney's work.

[patsymurray · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was surprised to find I enjoyed this poem despite its grim subject matter. It is a story of a heroic battle of a warrior with evil forces. Beowulf wins the first battle easily, but the second and third are harder fought. The virtues here are simple, and the evil originates almost entirely from outside the community so it is easy to choose a side. This poem reenforces the warrior's code that kept men loyal and obedient to their leaders. The accompanying photographs of landscapes and artifacts in this edition help generate the atmosphere and help add to the reader's understanding of the action and description in the poem. .

[traumleben_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

For many, Beowulf is a painful childhood memory because we were all forced to read -- or read parts of -- a translation of Old English into somewhat less old English. It was a fairly average tale made worse through unenthusiastic translation. It's oft featured in English literature curricula precisely because of its age, but that doesn't make it good poetry. A story like Beowulf was first carried forward from teller to listener long before it was ever written down. Once committed to paper though, it becomes frozen in time. Once it's frozen, it starts to lose its connection to the audience so it's only right that we entertain new translations. Seamus Heaney does a brilliant job of it, making an eminently readable epic poem, worthy of your overtaxed attention. From dragon-slaying to Scandinavian alliances, it's worth revisiting.

[josephtate_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent, excellent translation.

[cecrow · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm a bit shamed to rate this below average, perceiving its value as a historical artifact, but as literature in terms of content it doesn't amount to much more than a curiosity piece. Such perfectly crafted heroes are now denigrated so the model doesn't serve, and the story reads like the tale of a hubris bubble that never gets popped. That said, I'm glad to have taken the few minutes required to breeze through a modern translation for discussion purposes. I suspect a less wooden ear than mine for poetry, and wearing more patience, may perceive greater magic in its original form.

[sasham-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I would have loved to have a glossary with in this book with a few explanations of some words and maybe a summary because the poetical form can make the story hard to follow

[qatarjj · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This poem has been around for about 1200 years so you know it's got to be good.

I can't help wonder how much the original oral version changed with the telling and retelling until some anonymous monk committed the story to paper, or at least vellum. I suspect he added his own touches, converting the pagan Northmen to Christians! Also how many stories did Beowulf influence? JRR Tolkien was something of a subject matter expert on Beowulf so it probably shaped the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

[maowangvater · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The mighty young hero of the Geats rescues the Danes from two hellish monsters that are slaughtering their warriors as they sleep in the royal banquet hall. Then heaped in glory and treasure he returns home to become, in his old age, king and dragon-slayer: the final glorious deed that ends his life. Raffel's translation into vivid alliterative modern English is vivid and exciting. The new afterword lauds how well this translation has stood the test of time, and how many recent adaptations of the poem have been published since then (including the icky 2007 movie). Frank also writes that this earliest epic did not enter the canon of English literature until the late nineteenth century.

[kurt.rocourt · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Good story.

[atdcross · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not being a scholar on such poems as "Beowulf" and having read it for the first time, I find it was a beautifully written and in such a way as you can almost see the poetic imagery in front of your eyes. From the first words of the prologue - "Hear me!" - one may be caught in the trap of, although the poem consists of 3182 lines of verse (no fear, only 99 pages), finishing the book in one day.There is adventure, suspense, anticipation, blood, revenge, fantasy, death, mourning, villains, faith in God, glorious heroes, dreadful monsters, all elements of what makes a great story combined in one. There are moments that you can almost feel the character's emotions, for example, in Wiglaf's failed attempt to revive Beowulf from death and his resignation to the Christian God's will:"...He was sittingNear Beowulf's body, warily sprinklingWater in the dead man's face, tryingTo stir him. He could not. No one could have keptLife in their lord's body, or turnedAside the Lord's will: worldAnd men and all move as He orders,And always have, and always will."(lines 2853-2859)For those not familiar and new to reading this kind of poetry, as I am, there is provided a helpful introduction, an informative afterword, and a glossary of names and a diagram of the genealogy of characters mentioned.I encourage the reading if this classic. After reading it, you will know why it is a classic, and that for centuries.

[neverstopreading-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have read Beowulf prior to this translation, and I've read Heaney prior to this. Coming into it I loved both story and translator. This is a very readable and poetic translation. It also contains the old English on the left, if you, like me, like to compare translations with the original.

[liz1564 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beowulf translated by Stephen Mitchell was sent to me by Yale University Press via NetGalley. Thank you.This Beowulf by Stephen Mitchell is an very entertaining translation, The adjective that comes to my mind is "robust." The narrative is straightforward and the flashbacks and foreshadowing are not awkward and do not stop the forward movement of the story. I taught Beowulf for many years to high school students and I wish I had this version. The literature anthology I used had the Kennedy translation which I personally love for it lyric imagery. In Kennedy, the lines about Grendel approaching Heorot (lines 678-680) are "From the stretching moors, from the misty hollows, Grendel came creeping, accursed of God." The Mitchell translation renders the same lines as " Then up from the moor, in a veil of mist, Grendel came slouching. He bore God's wrath." I like the former, but I know my students would have preferred the latter.In the end, whether it be Mitchell, Seamus Heaney, Charles Kennedy or E. Donaldson, all translations of Beowulf are a good thing. I am sure the scops who entertained their listeners during the black nights in the cold north would each have put his own spin on the story. Make it beautiful or make it bloody. One thing is for sure. Beowulf can never be boring.Some very nice addition sto the Mitchell translation are the addition of maps, genealogical charts and a list of characters and place names with pronunciations.

[soradsauce_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If you ever need to read anything in translation that Heaney has done, DO IT. He keeps the feel of the original texts and is absolutely astounding at modernizing ancient texts without diverting from the original.

[madepercy-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is the first time I have read this epic poem but having seen the horrible 3D movie (cartoon?) beforehand, my imagination was all awry. Of note is the Christian versus pagan context that is completely missed by the movie, and also the context of the story is all over the shop. I was confused by the epic poem's plot but have since learnt that there are three seemingly disjointed stories, and there is no Angelina Jolie dragon for the two heroes to have slept with. Indeed, the movie makes Hrothgar and Beowulf look like idiots. The only part of the movie that made any sense in the context of the ancient text was the coastguard riding up to challenge Beowulf's armed warband (one of the typical "look at me I'm in 3D" shots with his spear). The rest just makes me angry at the movie! I drew some parallels with the Christian/pagan issue with my coinciding trip to Hong Kong. On a visit to Lamma Island, I asked my Chinese-speaking colleague about the Tian Hou Temple. She replied that it was something about the Queen of Heaven. I wondered whether it was Buddhist or what and looked it up when I returned to the hotel. It was interesting that Tian Hou evolved into the Empress of Heaven from a humble goddess of water and fishing. As Hong Kong originated as a fishing village, that makes sense. I have since learnt that various religious practices from Buddhism were incorporated into the worship of the polytheist local gods, and during numerous political eras, local deities were accepted and encouraged by governments over the centuries where these helped with civil stability (during the Han Dynasty, I think). Such Chinese "folk" religions are known as "Shenism". This interested me no end! Yet another thing I knew nothing about. In Beowulf, I felt the same tension between folk and formal religion, and it is clear that the text provides witness to the early days of Christianity in the region. I also felt I had seen numerous movies that draw on the different plots of the text. It is short and quick but would take several readings to better piece together the confusing plots, but others have agonised over this sufficiently for me to know my confusion was not just poor attention to detail!

[willszal-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

On my first listen, I feel like I got 5% of what's there out of it. I'm definitely going to need to revisit with a different translation.It's bizarre hearing the numerous motifs and names, many of which I'm so familiar with due to reading fantasy. In a way, it feels cliche, although, of course, Beowulf helped to invent these motifs—not the other way around.

[liscarey · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beowulf is a classic that comes down to us from Anglo-Saxon times, written in what we now call Old English, and so, except for scholars of Old English, today we read it only in translation.This is a wonderful translation that's fun, exciting, thoroughly enjoyable.I'm going to assume that, as Beowulf is more than a thousand years old, and is a popular choice for teachers to assign to high school students who will never even thing of studying Old English, spoilers are not really an issue.The basic story, of course, is that a Danish king has built a great mead hall, Heorot, where he and his thanes feast, drink, and generally party every night--until Grendel, a never really described "monster," being greatly annoyed by the noise, starts visiting nightly to kill, carry off, and eat men from the court. The Danes are unable to kill him, and this, obviously, puts quite a damper on the partying. Word spreads, and Beowulf, a young warrior of the Geats, comes to Heorot with the plan of fighting and killing Grendel. He succeeds in this, and everyone is delighted, until, the following night, Grendel's grieving, angry, warrior mother shows up, seeking vengeance for the death of her son. Grendel's mother, never named, is an even tougher opponent, and Beowulf has to fight her in her undersea lair.Tolkien said that the use of archaic language in translations of Beowulf is essential because the language used in the original would have been archaic to the listeners of the time. This isn't a universal opinion, but it certainly expresses something about how most translations of it are written. This is one of the things that makes it a challenging read for high school students, and not necessarily a beloved or even interesting one. Yet some of those translations have also been popular and beloved, also.It's important to understand than no translation is simply a matter of correctly translating the words on the page. Direct, exact translation can lose much of the meaning, even much of the basic sense, because different languages and cultures don't just have different things to say. They also tend to say "the same thing" in different, often very different ways. Then add in the effects of differing grammars and sentence structure, and it becomes clear that translation is always an act of artistic interpretation as well as translation of the words.What Maria Dahvana Headley has done is translate and interpret Beowulf not as a Great Work of Literature, but as a work that is meant to be performed in a loud mead hall, or bar, or drunken party, a work that needs to grab the attention of people who weren't waiting quietly for the performer to begin.The first word, in Old English "Hwaet," customarily used in Old English to demand the attention of the audience, becomes "Bro." This epic poem is about young men who have to prove themselves as warriors to be able to establish themselves as adult men. That's not the story; it's the cultural background that poet and audience took completely for granted. Headley doesn't turn the entire poem in to modern dudebro slang, not by any means, not even really very much of it--but that dudebro slang and attitude is lightly salted throughout, to give it for modern ears the tone and attitude the original audiences would have been hearing. This is a loud, engaging poem with a lot of male swagger, because that's what the original was for its original audience. It was not serious, sober, Serious Literature. It was popular entertainment.What makes it great literature is that, more than a thousand years later, it still has an audience that cares about it and enjoys it--even if that audience tends not to be high school students reading it only because it's been assigned and they'll be tested on it.Another thing Headley has done is salt in a few references to some of our more modern myths, stories, and bits of culture--not explicitly naming them, but references modern readers or listeners will likely enjoy even if they don't consciously register them. I'm personally sure that similar references were present in the original, and we don't recognize them, because Beowulf is the only significant piece of Old English literature we have. We don't have access to the literary culture it would have been embedded in in its day.The result is an epic poem that conveys the story and the culture of the day, while making it recognizable and accessible to the modern reader or listener--and, I think, in the process captures the fun and excitement, and something of the atmosphere in which it was intended to be heard.Highly recommended.I bought this book.

[bobbybslax · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Seamus Heaney does a good job of modernizing the old text. The story itself is often exciting and visceral, but the characters don't hold much interest.

[wickenden-285487 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very fun telling.

[octoberdad · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent translation. Easy to read, and some exquisite word choices that give a satisfying pop and rattle while reading it (if one reads portions of it aloud, as I did).

[dbsovereign · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An awakening for me, this book has opened up the classic and made it very accessible. My purist literature professor friend refers to it as an abomination since she can read it in its original. I, on the other hand, am most appreciative of this new translation and am loving it...[[in progress]]

[yarb_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Heaney is a poet I admire and enjoy in small doses rather than inhale, but his Beowulf is unputdownable. His feel for the texture, tenor and tempo of the Anglo Saxon is just spot-on, and reading this I noticed the correspondences with his own poetry, like that weighty, measured pacing, and the way his images unfold gradually. As a bonus he throws in a handful of Ulster dialect words like "bawn" (castle/fort/hall) and "graith" (gear, equipment) which feel totally apt and give a sense of the original's otherness. Overall the impression is of a great poet in his element.As for Beowulf itself, it's a simple tale, isn't it? Boy meets monster, boy grapples monster, boy meet's monster's mom... I'd forgotten that Grendel, along with all trolls and their ilk, is asserted by the poet to be the offspring of Cain. I'd also forgotten all about the climactic battle with the dragon, which is described much more clearly than are Grendel or his mother, and conforms (unsurprisingly given the intermediation of Tolkien) near-identically with the traditional fantasy image of the fire-breathing, treasure-hoarding, poison-breathing, winged serpent.