page_title: On Translating Beowulf
hierarchical_section_title: On Translating Beowulf
caption_attribution_description: English: Folio 137r of the heroic epic poem Beowulf, written primarily in the West Saxon dialect of Old English. It contains part of section III, lines 205-228 of the poem; J.R.R. Tolkien used lines 210-228 in his essay "On Translating Beowulf". Part of the Cotton MS Vitellius A XV manuscript currently located within the British Library. This is a digital photographic copy of the folio.
context_page_description: "On Translating Beowulf" is an essay by J. R. R. Tolkien which discusses the difficulties faced by anyone attempting to translate the Old English heroic-elegiac poem Beowulf into modern English. It was first published in 1940 as a preface contributed by Tolkien to a translation of Old English poetry; it was first published as an essay under its current name in the 1983 collection The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays.
  In the essay, Tolkien explains the difficulty of translating individual words from Old English, noting that a word like eacen cannot readily be translated by the same word in each case. He notes the problem of translating poetic kennings such as sundwudu and that the language chosen by the poet was already archaic at that moment. He explains that such terms had echoes and connotations of another world, an "unrecapturable magic".
  The essay describes Old English metre, with each line in two opposed halves. The stressed syllables in each half contained alliterating sounds in six possible patterns, which Tolkien illustrates using modern English. Rhyme is used only for special effects, such as to imitate waves beating on a shore.
context_section_description: "On Translating Beowulf" is an essay by J. R. R. Tolkien which discusses the difficulties faced by anyone attempting to translate the Old English heroic-elegiac poem Beowulf into modern English. It was first published in 1940 as a preface contributed by Tolkien to a translation of Old English poetry; it was first published as an essay under its current name in the 1983 collection The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays.
  In the essay, Tolkien explains the difficulty of translating individual words from Old English, noting that a word like eacen ('large', 'strong', 'supernaturally powerful') cannot readily be translated by the same word in each case. He notes the problem of translating poetic kennings such as sundwudu ('flood-timber', i.e. 'ship') and that the language chosen by the poet was already archaic at that moment. He explains that such terms had echoes and connotations of another world, an "unrecapturable magic".
  The essay describes Old English metre, with each line in two opposed halves. The stressed syllables in each half contained alliterating sounds in six possible patterns, which Tolkien illustrates using modern English. Rhyme is used only for special effects, such as to imitate waves beating on a shore. The essay ends with the observation that the whole poem is itself in two opposed halves, covering "Youth + Age; he rose – fell."
  Critics note that Tolkien attempted and sometimes failed to follow the rules he laid down in the essay in his own alliterative verse, in his own translations, and indeed in his narrative fiction such as The Lord of the Rings.
caption: Folio 137r of the Beowulf manuscript, lines 205-228: Tolkien used lines 210-228 in "On Translating Beowulf". Line 210, Fyrst forð gewát flota wæs on ýðum, is on the fifth line of the folio (not counting the broken line at the top).
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