Description
Book SynopsisRarely are these works translated by someone who is both a medieval scholar and a poet, and this combination makes for both fidelity to the complexity of the originals and compelling poetry in a modern idiom.
Trade Review"The translation of
Beowulf is a notoriously difficult task, and Williamson is to be commended for producing a fluent and lively text that recalls the language of the original to the beginning student of Old English literature." *
Comitatus *
"Craig Williamson's
Beowulf is superior, both in truth to the original and in readability, to any other version of the poem now available. Surprisingly many modern poets have tried to recreate the old alliterative poetry in modern English, Auden being only the most prominent of them, and while it is quite easy to write alliterative verse, it is hard indeed to do it well. Williamson's translations are very good and very accurate, which is a difficult combination to achieve." * Tom Shippey *
"These are modern renderings with bite and muscle, full of chewy sounds to delight any ear or voice, entering the mute reader's eye and resounding within: at times filling a raucous hall, at times gently whispering into an interior fold of woe, of memory. In these resonant spaces we hear again the scop's voice." * Benjamin Bagby, performer of
Beowulf and director of the medieval music ensemble Sequentia *
Table of ContentsForeword by Tom Shippey
Note on Editions
Guide to Pronouncing Old English
On Translating Old English Poetry
BEOWULF
Introduction
Beowulf
OTHER OLD ENGLISH POEMS
A Note on Genres
Heroic or Historical Poems
The Battle of Maldon
Deor
Elegies
The Wanderer
The Seafarer
The Wife's Lament
Wulf and Eadwacer
Selected Exeter Book Riddles
Riddles
Gnomic or Wisdom Poems
Maxims II (Cotton Maxims)
Charms
The Fortunes of Men
Religious Poems
Cædmon's Hymn
Physiologus: Panther and Whale
Vainglory
Two Advent Lyrics
The Dream of the Rood
Appendix A. "Digressions": Battles, Feuds, and Family Strife in Beowulf
Appendix B. Genealogies in Beowulf
Appendix C. Two Scandinavian Analogues of Beowulf
Appendix D. Possible Riddle Solutions
Glossary of Proper Names
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
