So obviously this needs to be read in translation unless you have the kind of autism, and determination, necessary to study old English; but what translation? I have a predilection for any translation that stands out as a literary touchstone in its own right, like Pope’s Iliad or Golding’s Metamorphoses, so, if you can, make a recommendation in that vein.
https://www.scribd.com/document/907181399/Beowulf-a-Dual-Language-Edition-Howell-D-Chickering
>>25010564tolkien translated it. hard to go wrong with tolkien.
>>25010564Well, Shippey's is the most recent and seems to be held in the highest regard. If I ever reread Beowulf his is certainly the one I'd go with. Heaney's translation probably holds the most status as a classic work, since he's an award-stacked poet. Tolkien's translation is wildly inaccurate and doesn't even attempt at poetry, and was only ever published by his money grubbing son. It has some value to LotR fans but no one else.
Posting some excerpts from various translations from this Wikipedia article, starting with Wackerbarth’s.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_translations_of_Beowulf
Now Garnett
William and Wyatt>Genuinely foreignizing; medievalizes in a distinctive style, with breaking rhythms, irregular syntax, insistently archaizing diction and striking literalism to produce a defamiliarizing effect.
Kennedy’s “Alliterative Verse” Translation
>>25010564>Zoomers need a translation for old English.lol, back in our day you had to read Romeo and Juliet in ninth grade, no translation. Yeah we struggled, but Spark Notes got you through. Suck it up buttercup.
Hall’s “Metrical Verse Translation”
Raffel’s
Michael Alexander’sThis was used by Penguin in their 1973 Penguin Classics edition
>>25010564
Rabsamen’s>imitates original's poetic form as closely as possible, with alliterative half-lines; seven prose sections interrupt the translation, instead of using footnotes
Headley’s “New Verse Translation”
MacNamara. Published by B&N so very cheap yet also of very high fidelity to content and style >>25012273Headley literally can't read Old English as he explicitly states in his translation. He got a commission and worked through it with a dictionary and mostly using other translations as a reference, then his translation was marketed to all hell. He is worse than Emily Wilson because she is at least academically qualified
>>25012339that’s what pope did for his iliad. he knew practically no greek.
