drama

Years ago I read this wonderful epic for the first time and was enthralled with its terrific characters. Unfortunately the translation I read was very difficult to understand and I had problems trying to match characters with pronouns among other things. This translation has no such problems. It is very readable. The readability of the text obviously enhances the experience since one can concentrate on the content and not on the difficult language. Another nice feature is the inclusion of the original text. While I can not read it, it is certainly very interesting to compare.

The actually epic of Beowulf is a great knights tale that has been revived as a result of Tolkein's interest in the work. In my opinion it is the greatest epic ever written. While it is much shorter than say the Iliad, I certainly found it more entertaining. Beowulf's adventure's with Grendal and his mother(thank goodness none of our mother-in-laws were like this) can not be beat. Don't miss this enchanting tell.

I also highly recommend this book on tape read by Heaney. His Irish accent gives the story a dark ages feeling that really enhances the experience.

After reading Tolkien's "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" as well as his epic fantasy, my own path was set: I became an English medievalist and, in fact, as a senior graduate student, taught Beowulf under the direction of William Alfred of Harvard before graduating and going on to become a writer of fantasy and science fiction.

I've tried to do my own alliterative translations: Mr. Heaney's translation comes as a delight for a number of reasons. Chief among them is this: he's the best poet to tackle BEOWULF since the original -scop-. Even 20 years after my grad school days, I read Old English. Heaney has produced a translation that is profoundly moving. If he sometimes diverges from the four-stress alliterative pattern, with the third stress being the main one, it's by design -- and he's explained it. He spares us the most convoluted kennings, but gives us, instead, the tautness, the spaces between the words, the pauses for thought, tension, and what Tolkien and Auden referred to as the Northern Thing -- the austere combination of faith and darkness that is Wyrd. It's a solid translation and a fine poem in Heaney's hands.

And it consoles me for not having a full translation by Tolkien and that John Gardner never lived to translate BEOWULF as he had hoped.

It is also delightful to consider that, for the first time since the death of T.S. Eliot, poetry is going to the top of the best-seller lists.

Mr. Heaney, although he is not a ring-giver, rings true, and has given us a great gift.

Seamus Heaney's Beowulf is the best translation of a classic work into a modern language that I have seen in years, it may yet be my personal favorite translation of all time (best to let the thrill of the reading wear off before that judgement is made, however). I have done a bit of translation work from modern languages other than English, and am fully aware of how difficult it is to translate a line of prose from one living language to another, while acomplishing the two tasks that are the goal of every translator; 1- convey the meaning of the words, 2-convey the aesthetic "feel" of the words. These two goals are very often in serious conflict with one another- and when one adds in the element of the subject being poetry it makes it even harder, because you have to mediate the first two goals, and then add another; fit it all into a lyrical framework.

Much of the time, translators simply drop the poetry, and represent the story as prose (the Rieus version of the Iliad does this)and this is a choice I usually respect. Trying to force a story into an alien rhyme scheme makes them, very often, unbearably cheesy (viz. most versions of the Aeneid); whereas the Rieus' Iliad is a rollicking good time.

Nevertheless, the loss of lyricism is indeed a loss; especially when the sounds of the words when spoken are particularly beautiful, or the lyrical framework particularly appropriate for conveying the mood of a story. Ironically, the better the poet is in the original language the more difficult it becomes for her voice to survive the translator's work.

And this is why (back to the orginal topic) Heaney's work is so jaw-dropping. The story works as faithful translation, beautiful writing, and poetry as well. It is entirely comprehensible, faithful to the original text, and yet has the distinct ring of an authentic saxon "voice." I would give my right arm to have half the ability with translating modern languages that Heaney has brought to bear on this translation of the classic saxon epic.