Beowulf

A New Translation

paperback, 176 pages

Publié 25 août 2020 par MCD x FSG Originals.

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(3 critiques)

Nearly twenty years after Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf—and fifty years after the translation that continues to torment high-school students around the world—there is a radical new verse translation of the epic poem by Maria Dahvana Headley, which brings to light elements that have never before been translated into English, recontextualizing the binary narrative of monsters and heroes into a tale in which the two categories often entwine, justice is rarely served, and dragons live among us.

A man seeks to prove himself as a hero. A monster seeks silence in his territory. A warrior seeks to avenge her murdered son. A dragon ends it all. The familiar elements of the epic poem are seen with a novelist’s eye toward gender, genre, and history—Beowulf has always been a tale of entitlement and encroachment, powerful men seeking to become more powerful, and one woman seeking justice for her child, but this …

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A wonderful and fresh translation. It takes some getting used to, but it is full of wit, and especially with the skill of Jd Jackson reading it, it really comes alive. Above all, it accomplishes its goal: it tells the story of Beowulf as though a bro is sitting next to you at the bar, with a knack for poetry and word-weaving, bending your ear about a cools story.

With such an apt translation into the vernacular of our particular moment, I suspect this translation may age particularly quickly, and become itself and artifact of our own time. I don't think that's a mark against it, though.

a publié une critique de Beowulf par Maria Dahvana Headley

A masterpiece - try the audiobook

Aucune note

I listen to a lot of audiobooks. Even if you don't this one is worth trying. It's an epic poem that was certainly passed down orally for generations before it was ever written down. Imagining the changes it would have gone through during that process makes me enjoy this modern-language translation even more. It might not be a translation that hold up forever, but it fits here and now.