Description
Book SynopsisBeowulf & Beyond is the first and only collection of translations into modern English to include not only Beowulf but all of the best-known works of Anglo-Saxon literature in one convenient volume.
The texts translated here are taken chiefly from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, The Exeter Book and the Anglo-Saxon Genesis, as well of course as Beowulf itself. Previously, students have had to buy a separate book to read essential works like "The Seafarer", required reading in all courses of early English literature. And even these may miss some of the greatest delights of this period: the wonderful stories from Bede, the charms, sayings, spells and riddles that inspire students to dig deeper into this strange and magical world.
Dan Veach provides a brief introduction to each text, giving just enough background to allow the modern reader with no specialist knowledge to understand the historical context of the work and its author. There is a longer introduction to Beowulf, discussing the poem in some detail; its opening paragraph tells us: “Those returning [to Beowulf] with distant memories from school will be shocked to discover just how fantastic it really is—how chilling the drama, how delicious the scene-setting, how engaging the characters.
These translations are, in the words of A.E. Stalling writing in the book’s Preface, the work of a “deeply learned translator who, at the same time, wears his learning so lightly, locating each work with a brief introduction and letting its humanity gleam through.”
Dan Veach’s translations, which derive their power from cleaving "close to the bone" of the original Anglo-Saxon, capture the power and punch of the original in a supple verse that sweeps the reader irresistibly onward.
Table of ContentsForeword
Preface
TALES FROM THE VENERABLE BEDE
The Story of Caedmon
Pope Gregory sees an Angle
The Story of the Sparrow
From the Venerable Bede, by A. E. Stallings
Bede’s Death Song
BLOOD & BATTLE
Viking Attack on Lindisfarne
The Battle of Brunanburg
The Battle of Maldon
Norman Invasion of 1066
LOVE & LOSS
The Seafarer
The Wife’s Lament
The Husband’s Message
The Wanderer
BOLD SPIRITS
From the Anglo-Saxon Genesis
Satan’s Rebellion
The Temptation
The Sacrifice of Isaac
Dream of the Rood
Judith
MAGIC & MYSTERY
Magic Spells
To Heal the Land
For a Swarm of Bees
Charms for Childbirth
Maxims
Riddles
#25. “I’m a wonderful creature”
#27. “I’m treasured by men, found far and wide”
#44. “It hangs in splendor by a man’s thigh”
#5. “I’m a lonely wretch, wounded by iron”
#61. “Sometimes a lady locks me”
#46. “A man sat at wine with two wives”
#45. “I hear tell of something”
#47. “A moth munching on words”
#54. “The young man came”
Answers to Riddles
BEOWULF
Episodes
Introduction
Beowulf
I. Grendel
II. Grendel’s Mother
III. The Dragon
The Finnsburg Fragment
Selected Readings and Media
