Beowulf: Translation by Seamus Heaney

Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney is a side-by-side Old English / English presentation of the great energetic hero poem. But before you jump into splitting sinews and bursting bones, please take time to visit Heaney's introduction!

Heaney's introduction is beautiful in itself and gives insight into how his translation should be read as verse. Heaney also reminds us it is because of J.R.R. Tolkien, popularly known due to The Lord of the Rings, that we read Beowulf today. Tolkien's paper The Monsters and the Critics was the catalyst for the academic world to take Beowulf seriously as literature; it is because of Tolkien that so many students are introduced to Beowulf in high school and college.

But just because the academics consider Beowulf to be "serious literature" is no reason for us to ignore it as stuffy or inaccessible. We can thank the academics for bringing the story to our attention, but it is for us to enjoy. It is an epic tale of constantly warring nations, of a people near despair, of great (even supernatural) virtue and strength, of Cain's monstrous descendants, and even of the dragon.

The poem does not end on an uplifting note; but today's reader must know, as those who first heard the tale knew, that what came next in the story was salvation through Christ. This is the uplifting note, the unwritten but understood ending to Beowulf.

[originally posted at veni.sanctespirit.us on Aug 4, 2007]