Poems from the Old Burton Poems from the Old University of Nebraska 2nd 2nd Edition, First Printing. Published by University of Nebraska Press, 1964. Octavo. Hardcover. Book is very good with stamp on front flyleaf. No dust jacket. Great copy of this collection of classic poems. 100% positive feedback. 30 day money back guarantee. NEXT DAY SHIPPING! Excellent customer service. Please email with any questions. All books packed carefully and ship with free delivery confirmation/tracking. All books come with free bookmarks. Ships from Sag Harbor, New York.Seller 335487 Poetry We Buy Books! Collections - Libraries - Estates - Individual Titles. Message us if you have books to sell!
This collection was SO good. There were poems I have seen before and poems I haven’t. There were laments, riddles, epic battle poems, and Advent devotion poems, which was perfect, because I read them during Advent. I felt like they all had suitably Old English flavor. Old English writing entertains me a lot.
Burton Raffel is one of my favorite translators. I always buy anything I find by him, and this did not disappoint.
Collection of some of the best-known Old English poems that are not Beowulf.
While I'm not familiar enough with the literature of this time period to comment on the quality of Burton Raffel's translation, I did feel like he made the language accessible in a way that still felt authentic. His introduction does a nice job of giving some background and explaining some of the challenges of translating Old English into modern English.
The poems include some classic pieces of historical sagas, retellings of biblical stories, and a delightful selection of riddles. Although several of the poems are incomplete or fragmentary, there is enough substance here to give a satisfying sampling of Old English verse.
Good translation! I bought it for "The Dream of the Rood." But there is a good variety of other kind of poems; there are a few battle poems, but they don't predominate.
I appreciate having these poems all together in one place, and especially enjoyed reading The Battle of Brunanburh, The Dream of the Rood, and the Phoenix. However, like Raffel's translation of Beowulf, these poems feel much more modern than they ought, and Raffel never tries to keep the alliteration and the steady rhythm of real Anglo-Saxon poetry.
Burton Raffel's translations are always the most poetic available. His "Seafarer" is better than Ezra Pound's, and his "Beowulf" (not included in this book) is better than Seamus Heaney's.