A Readable Beowulf: The Old English Epic Newly Translated

by Stanley B. Greenfield, Alain Renoir (Introduction)

Stanley B. Greenfield, one of the world’s foremost Anglo-Saxon scholars, writes of why, after more than thirty years of study, he undertook the Herculean task of rendering Beowulf into con­temporary verse: “I wanted my translation to be not only faith­ful to the original but, as the late John Lennon would have put it, ‘A Poem in Its Own Write.’ I wanted it to ‘flow,’ to be easy to read, with the narrative movement of a modern prose story; yet to suggest the rhythmic cadences of the Old English poem. I wanted it both modern and Old English in its reflexes and sen­sibilities, delighting both the general reader and the Anglo-Saxon specialist. . . . I wanted it to reproduce the intoxication of aural contours which… might have pleased and amused war­riors over their cups in the Anglo-Saxon mead-hall, or those monks in Anglo-Saxon monasteries who paid more attention to song and to stories of Ingeld than to the lector and the gospels.”

 

Greenfield has succeeded to a remarkable degree in reaching his goals. An early reviewer of the manuscript, Daniel G. Calder of UCLA, wrote: “I find it the best translation of Beowulf.

One of the great problems with other translations is that they make the reading of Beowulf difficult. Greenfield’s translation speeds along with considerable ease. . . Scholars will find the translation fascinating as an exercise in the successful recreat­ing of various aspects of Old English poetic style.”

Genres: Classics, Literature, Epic

176 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1982

Reviews

[andreea. · Rating 3 out of 5]

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[Holly Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

This version was very readable, I rather enjoyed it. The only reason I went 4 instead of 5 stars, this translation does not contain the famous line "Spawned in slime."

[L.J. Engelmeier · Rating 3 out of 5]

This version of Beowulf took me a little while to get through. I found myself growing bored in places and drifting off due to the dated way the poem is translated. I'm a bigger fan of Heaney's modernized version, if only for its imagery and pacing. Not that Greenfield's translation didn't have its shining moments.

I'm also not overly fond of some of Greenfield's choices here, especially when it comes to the spelling of places/people (such as "Beowulf" for "Beow," or Heorot, which, funnily enough, is spelled "Heort" within the translation and "Heorot" in the translation's headings) or the over-Christianization of passages I'm used to seeing refer to Fate (one of the central aspects of Beowulf is its strange mix of Christianity and Paganism). In fact, some of my favourite lines from Beowulf are from the digressions on Fate, so I was sad not to see them.

I enjoyed the footnotes, as they cleared up some confusion regarding historical aspects, and they did a decent job of teaching terms I already knew, such as "litotes"; however, I didn't particularly like that there were so many footnotes (some redundant) or that they preceded what they referred to by as much as a line. I'm easily distracted and constantly found myself looking down to read footnotes mid-line, and sometimes, those footnotes would refer to something that happened a line later, leading to my confusion until I continued reading the translation once more.

Overall, not a bad read. I greatly enjoy the extensive glossary of names and such in the back and the genealogical tables. They aid my research immensely.