"fate hovered near, unknowable but certain" (line 2421)

books:


	• Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (Bilingual Edition) W. W. Norton & Company, 2001 - 215 pages average customer review:based on 247 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

More than a Great Story

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.

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beowulf

Product arrived in condition described and in a timely fashion. Would purchase from the buyer again.

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Sweet!

I remember reading Beowulf for the first time in seventh grade. It was mandatory reading, and the translation we had was horrid. Those two factors made pretty much all the children in the class (including me) dislike the book immediately. A few years later, as I was browsing through books at the local Borders, I found Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf. I am glad that I decided to give the book one more try. Seamus Heaney's translation is wonderful, and I was able to enjoy the story of Beowulf for the first time. I also enjoyed looking at the original Anglo-Saxon text as well, while I was reading. Heaney's translation is fresh, clear, and most of all epic, just like a story of this caliber is supposed to be. Great translation. Beowulf is redeemed.

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Beowulf Review

This is a great book. It is one that even after reading other translations, is good.

"fate hovered near, unknowable but certain" (line 2421)

Over the years I've read several English renderings of Beowulf. But I don't think I've ever really appreciated the haunting beauty of the thing until reading Seamus Heaney's translation. In his introductory essay, Heaney says that he's always loved the Beowulf poet's "foursquareness about the utterance," the "undeluded quality" of his "sense of the world." In translating from the Anglo-Saxon, Heaney seeks to be loyal to this "attractively direct" style, and he succeeds admirably. He's especially good at capturing the original poem's directness while retaining its beauty in translating the compound words so beloved by the Anglo Saxons. Heaney's craft renders the dragon which slays Beowulf, for example, as "ground-burner," "cave-guard," and "sky-plague."

Beowulf is a rousing good story if read just for the action. But as Heaney reminds us, the three challenges of Beowulf--the battle with Grendel in dark of night, the battle with his witch mother in water running deep underground, and the battle with the dragon in the wilderness--are also archetypes of the deepest fears every human must face. They are our fate, our doom. Only time reveals what precise faces they will wear, but they are our fate, "unknowable but certain."

That's why the tale of Beowulf is both stirring and melancholy, as are all the Scandinavian sagas. We are called to great heroism, and some of us can attain it. But even the heroes, the Beowulfs, at last come to know their mortality. In one of the most poignant sections of the saga, a poem within the poem telling of the sorrow of one Hrethel over the death of his son, this theme comes through clearly.

He begins to keen
and weep for his boy, watching the raven
gloat where he hangs: he can be of no help.
The wisdom of age is worthless to him. (2446-2449)

Heaney's remarkable artistry has brought Beowulf back to us. It's a beautiful gift. After savoring it, readers may wish to consult J.R.R. Tolkien's insightful essay "Beowulf and the Monsters."

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Composed toward the end of the first millennium, Beowulf is the classic Northern epic of a hero's triumphs as a young warrior and his fated death as a defender of his people. The poem is about encountering the monstrous, defeating it, and then having to live on, physically and psychically exposed in the exhausted aftermath. It is not hard to draw parallels in this story to the historical curve of consciousness in the twentieth century, but the poem also transcends such considerations, telling us psychological and spiritual truths that are permanent and liberating. In his new translation, Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney has produced a work that is both true, line by line, to the original poem and a fundamental expression of his own creative gift. A New York Times bestseller, winner of the Whitbread Award.

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