Where Beowulf Gets Poetic

Beowulf by Seamus Heaney
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

(I am reviewing the translation, not the original.)

I thought this was awesome, an excellent, modern version of a very old poem.

Seamus Heaney attempted to give the reader a true translation of Beowulf, providing the modern reader a poem as nearly comparable to the original as possible. It is rendered in natural English though still in verse, nearly line-for-line translating from Anglo-Saxon. (The original Anglo-Saxon is given on the left, the modern version on the right. I read the right.) He uses appropriate poetic language, too, and explains in the introduction the work he did to find the right vocabulary so as to give the modern reader a taste of the original while still being comprehensible. I think he did that very well.

He also gave us an approximation of the Anglo-Saxon meter, with each line (usually) breaking into two parts (where you might pause briefly), with an instance of alliteration on either side. For example:

"Then this roaming killer came in a fury
and slaughtered him in Heorot. Where she is hiding,
glutting on the corpse and glowing in her escape..."

We find "killer" on the left and "came" on the right; "him" and "Heorot" on the left, "hiding" on the right; and "glutting" on the left and "glowing" on the right.

He manages to keep this Anglo-Saxon alliteration rule in mind in almost every line, though not completely. You can find a few without it. But he didn't want to twist the language too much, so I approve of his balance.

The language here, as I said, is decently poetic, though it leans toward comprehension overall. Older versions may sound more elaborately poetic, but I found this very comprehensible while still sounding like poetry. I think it's a good mix.

Recommended for those who want to see if they might like Beowulf more than they did back in school. I think you will like it better.

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