Nearly twenty years after Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf—and fifty years after the translation that continues to torment high-school students around the world—there is a radical new verse translation of the epic poem by Maria Dahvana Headley, which brings to light elements that have never before been translated into English, recontextualizing the binary narrative of monsters and heroes into a tale in which the two categories often entwine, justice is rarely served, and dragons live among us.
A man seeks to prove himself as a hero. A monster seeks silence in his territory. A warrior seeks to avenge her murdered son. A dragon ends it all. The familiar elements of the epic poem are seen with a novelist’s eye toward gender, genre, and history—Beowulf has always been a tale of entitlement and encroachment, powerful men seeking to become more powerful, and one woman seeking justice for her child, but this …
Nearly twenty years after Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf—and fifty years after the translation that continues to torment high-school students around the world—there is a radical new verse translation of the epic poem by Maria Dahvana Headley, which brings to light elements that have never before been translated into English, recontextualizing the binary narrative of monsters and heroes into a tale in which the two categories often entwine, justice is rarely served, and dragons live among us.
A man seeks to prove himself as a hero. A monster seeks silence in his territory. A warrior seeks to avenge her murdered son. A dragon ends it all. The familiar elements of the epic poem are seen with a novelist’s eye toward gender, genre, and history—Beowulf has always been a tale of entitlement and encroachment, powerful men seeking to become more powerful, and one woman seeking justice for her child, but this version brings new context to an old story. While crafting her contemporary adaptation of Beowulf, Headley unearthed significant shifts lost over centuries of translation.
I read an excerpt from this translation and immediately bought the book. It's not like I'm a Beowulf fanatic. I am, however, a fan of whatever makes something actually relatable. This translation does that. It's real and to the point and has some of the greatest newly-coined words. Headley is having fun with it, based on a deep foundation of understanding the story that needs to be told. I do recommend it.
This was a delightful translation to listen to--Headley's sense of rhythm and storytelling turns into bro-slinging narrative of blood and kinship and loss (and hoo boy does Headley do a good job with keeping at the front all the misogyny that crops up in the poem). I might try reading Headley's translation at some point. For now, I'm really glad I listened to it.
The "Bro!" translation, less rudely modernizing than you'd think, a joyous and hilarious full sweep of English language in all its boastful vigilant possibilities.
This was a delightful translation to listen to--Headley's sense of rhythm and storytelling turns into bro-slinging narrative of blood and kinship and loss (and hoo boy does Headley do a good job with keeping at the front all the misogyny that crops up in the poem). I might try reading Headley's translation at some point. For now, I'm really glad I listened to it.
I guess in two halves. This translation is 97% wonderful, with the other 3% being occasional grating patches. It is the most alive and readable version I've read, and I think the stylistic choices Headley made all make sense, from the repeated exhortations of "bro" to the ways she works to treat the women of the story--especially Grendel's mother, but not only her--better than other translations I've read. Using the techniques of heavy alliteration and kenning compounds with all modern language really brings home how driving they can be, and the originals must have been when their vocabulary was current. Sometimes "bro" and "daddy" felt over-repeated, and then started to grate, but that really is an occasional glitch in a wonderful translation (and I wonder if I'd even have felt that if I'd listened to the poem rather than reading it, or read it more slowly instead of in …
I guess in two halves. This translation is 97% wonderful, with the other 3% being occasional grating patches. It is the most alive and readable version I've read, and I think the stylistic choices Headley made all make sense, from the repeated exhortations of "bro" to the ways she works to treat the women of the story--especially Grendel's mother, but not only her--better than other translations I've read. Using the techniques of heavy alliteration and kenning compounds with all modern language really brings home how driving they can be, and the originals must have been when their vocabulary was current. Sometimes "bro" and "daddy" felt over-repeated, and then started to grate, but that really is an occasional glitch in a wonderful translation (and I wonder if I'd even have felt that if I'd listened to the poem rather than reading it, or read it more slowly instead of in just 2 sittings).
But even in this best translation yet, the story frustrates me. However much Headley tries to open it up, and pushes back on this reading in the translator's introduction, it's still a story of macho men bragging and proving themselves with violence, in which womens' main role is to be prizes and servers. And Grendel's mother still gets short shrift. She's the character whose violence is the easiest to justify, but her role in the story is still to be an enemy whose defeat we cheer for.
It's amazing to be able to read this snapshot from so long ago, and this translation is now the one that I'd recommend to people. But I'm still so ambivalent about the actual content.
I listen to a lot of audiobooks. Even if you don't this one is worth trying. It's an epic poem that was certainly passed down orally for generations before it was ever written down. Imagining the changes it would have gone through during that process makes me enjoy this modern-language translation even more. It might not be a translation that hold up forever, but it fits here and now.
I was one of the rare individuals who loved Beowulf when I read it in high school literature class. We read a couple translations next to a copy of the original work.
When I read a paragraph of this new translation during a book discussion, I immediately picked up the new translation via audio.
Right now, I can't read. Since January, I've had TWO books I'd been so excited to get my hands on for nearly a year prior. I've read one chapter, total.
The introduction by the author was worth it, alone. Then ...
Listening to this version of Beowulf was like listening to contemporary music. Lots of fun, a good story, and still feels true to what I read years ago. It's well worth the 3.5 hour listen (after the 30 minute author intro which is also a good listen.) If you like your audiobooks faster, I'm not …
I was one of the rare individuals who loved Beowulf when I read it in high school literature class. We read a couple translations next to a copy of the original work.
When I read a paragraph of this new translation during a book discussion, I immediately picked up the new translation via audio.
Right now, I can't read. Since January, I've had TWO books I'd been so excited to get my hands on for nearly a year prior. I've read one chapter, total.
The introduction by the author was worth it, alone. Then ...
Listening to this version of Beowulf was like listening to contemporary music. Lots of fun, a good story, and still feels true to what I read years ago. It's well worth the 3.5 hour listen (after the 30 minute author intro which is also a good listen.) If you like your audiobooks faster, I'm not sure this is one to speed up. The rhythm and meter is important.
I highly, highly, highly recommend this story. I will be eventually reading it and there's a BBC production of it that I'm going to listen to as well.
