Experimental feature: Order Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (Bilingual Edition) from the UK, Canada, Germany or France by clicking an appropriate flag below.

               

Some items available at Amazon.com are not available in all countries.

Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 829.3
EAN: 9780393320978
ISBN: 0393320979
Label: W. W. Norton & Company
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 215
Publication Date: 2001-02
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Studio: W. W. Norton & Company

In Beowulf warriors must back up their mead-hall boasts with instant action, monsters abound, and fights are always to the death. The Anglo-Saxon epic, composed between the 7th and 10th centuries, has long been accorded its place in literature, though its hold on our imagination has been less secure. In the introduction to his translation, Seamus Heaney argues that Beowulf's role as a required text for many English students obscured its mysteries and "mythic potency." Now, thanks to the Irish poet's marvelous recreation (in both senses of the word) under Alfred David's watch, this dark, doom-ridden work gets its day in the sun.

There are endless pleasures in Heaney's analysis, but readers should head straight for the poem and then to the prose. (Some will also take advantage of the dual-language edition and do some linguistic teasing out of their own.) The epic's outlines seem simple, depicting Beowulf's three key battles with the scaliest brutes in all of art: Grendel, Grendel's mother (who's in a suitably monstrous snit after her son's dismemberment and death), and then, 50 years later, a gold-hoarding dragon "threatening the night sky / with streamers of fire." Along the way, however, we are treated to flashes back and forward and to a world view in which a thane's allegiance to his lord and to God is absolute. In the first fight, the man from Geatland must travel to Denmark to take on the "shadow-stalker" terrorizing Heorot Hall. Here Beowulf and company set sail:

Men climbed eagerly up the gangplank,
sand churned in the surf, warriors loaded
a cargo of weapons, shining war-gear
in the vessel's hold, then heaved out,
away with a will in their wood-wreathed ship.
Over the waves, with the wind behind her
and foam at her neck, she flew like a bird...

After a fearsome night victory over march-haunting and heath-marauding Grendel, our high-born hero is suitably strewn with gold and praise, the queen declaring: "Your sway is wide as the wind's home, / as the sea around cliffs." Few will disagree. And remember, Beowulf has two more trials to undergo.

Heaney claims that when he began his translation it all too often seemed "like trying to bring down a megalith with a toy hammer." The poem's challenges are many: its strong four-stress line, heavy alliteration, and profusion of kennings could have been daunting. (The sea is, among other things, "the whale-road," the sun is "the world's candle," and Beowulf's third opponent is a "vile sky-winger." When it came to over-the-top compound phrases, the temptations must have been endless, but for the most part, Heaney smiles, he "called a sword a sword.") Yet there are few signs of effort in the poet's Englishing. Heaney varies his lines with ease, offering up stirring dialogue, action, and description while not stinting on the epic's mix of fate and fear. After Grendel's misbegotten mother comes to call, the king's evocation of her haunted home may strike dread into the hearts of men and beasts, but it's a gift to the reader:

A few miles from here
a frost-stiffened wood waits and keeps watch
above a mere; the overhanging bank
is a maze of tree-roots mirrored in its surface.
At night there, something uncanny happens:
the water burns. And the mere bottom
has never been sounded by the sons of men.
On its bank, the heather-stepper halts:
the hart in flight from pursuing hounds
will turn to face them with firm-set horns
and die in the wood rather than dive
beneath its surface. That is no good place.

In Heaney's hands, the poem's apparent archaisms and Anglo-Saxon attitudes--its formality, blood-feuds, and insane courage--turn the art of an ancient island nation into world literature. --Kerry Fried

Customer Rating:
Review Summary: More than a Great Story
Review: This is such a beautiful translation of the story of Beowulf that all others pale by comparison. Seamus Heaney outdoes himself in his choices and combinations of words that convey more than meaning. They convey emotion, imagery, sound. The dragon "rippled down the rock, writhing with anger" and it "hurtled forth in a fiery blaze." Listening to this recording makes the thousand-year-old epic comes alive in all its beauty and terror. This is the ultimate representation of the Beowulf tale. No movie could unleash the powers of the mind like Seamus Heaney's words do. Let this review stand as a powerful fan letter to Seamus Heaney. Call me crazy:I have memorized more than 200 lines of this powerful poem by listening to it and reading it over and over.

---

Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Fantastic!
Review: I love this translation! I have read the Dover edition (which is fine if you want a cheap edition to get familiar with the story)but the story really comes alive in the Seamus Heaney translation. I am currently using this book to teach a high school class. The kids are getting very involved in the story line. It's also been fun listening to the kids compare what's in the book to what they've seen in the recent Beowulf movie.

---

Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Intriguing...
Review: Accused by some as the trecherous read and hailed praise by others, I found the Old English to be quite interesting as laid out next to modern day English. I, as well as those to whom I've lent it out to, have very much enjoyed this book.

---

Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Wow
Review: This was incredible. Why wasn't I assigned to read this in high school? I want to read more like this. This is up there with Homer. This new translation is a very easy-to-read one, I sat down and pretty much read this straight through. I really enjoyed looking back and forth at the old English vs. the contemporary. This was really really great.

---

Customer Rating:
Review Summary: It's about time I read this!
Review: I may be one of only a few that somehow made it through high school and college without having to read Beowulf. In fact, I made it all the way to 62. I really don't know at what age I would have begun to appreciate it as much as I did now. If it has been many years since you have read it, you might want to try it again. It is a fantastic epic of honor.

The bilingual portion was lost on me; though it was interesting to look at the Old English alongside of the Heaney translation.

I am anxiously awaiting the movie version Neil Gaiman is working on.

---

---