num_pages: 176
description: Stanley B. Greenfield one of the worlds 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. Greenfields 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.
language: English
title: A Readable Beowulf: The Old English Epic Newly Translated
publisher: Southern Illinois University Press