Beowulf: A Verse Translation (Norton Critical Editions)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393975800 ISBN 13: 9780393975802

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2002

Winner of the Whitbread Prize, Seamus Heaney’s translation "accomplishes what before now had seemed impossible: a faithful rendering that is simultaneously an original and gripping poem in its own right" (New York Times Book Review).

The translation that "rides boldly through the reefs of scholarship" (The Observer) is combined with first-rate annotation. No reading knowledge of Old English is assumed. Heaney’s clear and insightful introduction to Beowulf provides students with an understanding of both the poem’s history in the canon and Heaney’s own translation process.

About the Author:

Daniel Donoghue is Professor of English at Harvard University. He is the author of Style in Old English Poetry: The Test of the Auxiliary and Lady Godiva: A Literary History of a Legend.

Seamus Heaney (1939―2013) was an Irish poet, playwright, translator, lecturer and recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born at Mossbawn farmhouse between Castledawson and Toomebridge, County Derry, he resided in Dublin until his death.

Language Notes:

Text: English (translation)