Beowulf

This was the one translation that my husband didn't have. He was thrilled!

"Beowulf" has been around for over a thousand years, minimum. Serious translations have been attempted since the early 1800's, and there are well over 30 "approved" or "recognized" translations and innumerable additional efforts. When an epic poem has been celebrated as the oldest long poem in Olde English, deemed a foundational work of English literature, mocked by Monty Python, and turned into a movie featuring a computer generated version of Angelina Jolie, well, those are all pretty good reasons for putting that poem on your reading list.Like other difficult and challenging works in translation, (say, "Don Quixote", or even better, the Welsh "Mabinogion"), there seem to be three approaches to translation. One is the academic and scholarly approach that wrestles with every dot and comma, and sometimes ends up both authentic and tediously or idiosyncratically unreadable. Another approach is to take the actual source text as a mere suggestion or starting point for a fanciful reinterpretation that bears little relation to the original. The happy medium, (which I feel is what we have here), is the work that honors the letter and the spirit of the original, takes some liberties in the name of creating a worthy tale, and captures the energy, romance, and thrill of the work as originally intended. While I am no Beowulf scholar, and cannot testify to where this version stands on the professional academic scale, I would suggest that if you are a reader who primarily wants a solid, gripping and vivid introduction to "Beowulf", this is a wonderful place to start.Mitchell opens the book with an introduction that sets the book in historical, social and cultural context. He explains the basic hows and whys of his approach to the translation, and offers some eye opening examples of how any particular passage could be, should be, and perhaps shouldn't be, translated. He explains the form and metre of the poem, and explains some of the more subtle decisions he made in that regard as the translator. There is an especially interesting discussion of the pagan versus Christian elements of the poem. This is not belabored, and is accessible to an interested but non-professional reader.With that we proceed to the poem, (with the original Old English and then the translation alternating). One is immediately struck by how fresh and accessible this version is. The poem flows smoothly but powerfully. To over simplify, I gather that in the academic community there is much debate about whether "Beowulf" should be considered a "written" work or a transcribed version of an "oral" tale. I don't know; don't really care. What does matter is that this translation has the immediacy, the narrative drive, and the clarity and energy of a living work that could be declaimed right now in a mead hall to a thunderously positive reception. I'll settle for that.(Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

Beowulf by Translated by Stephen Mitchell is a contemporary translation of the classic poem. Mitchell was educated at Amherst, the Sorbonne, and Yale, and de-educated through intensive Zen practice. His many books include the bestselling Tao Te Ching, The Gospel According to Jesus, Bhagavad Gita, The Book of Job, Meetings with the Archangel, Gilgamesh, The Second Book of the Tao, and the Iliad.It was in high school that I first read Beowulf. Monsters, Vikings, and adventure sounded like it would be a great read, however, it turned out to be misery. The text was in old English and not the thing my high school brain wanted to focus on. I asked why it wasn't written in modern language. I was told it would lose it poetic style and intent. Little did I know, we were reading a translation. Several translations exist of the now unreadable original English. Many high schoolers were probably happy with the 2007 release of Beowulf with Angelina Jolie as Grendel's mother. Mitchell points out one major flaw of that movie. The characters in the movie talked in almost comic book fashion rather than the well-spoken characters in the original text.Translations also bring about the problem of the poetry and in particular in this poem the alliteration. Mitchell keeps this alive with alliteration with repeated sound over that of just the first letter. There is a rhythm with words and the line structure that holds true to the original. In the introduction, Mitchell also discusses another interesting point of the poem, religion. In the poem, a singular God is mentioned throughout. It is not the Norse pantheon. The God, however, is a bit ambiguous. Although called Lord and mentions Cain, it does not seem, historically or in the poem, to be the Jewish God. Yet, the text makes no reference to Jesus or the New Testament.Mitchell's translation does an excellent job of preserving the story as well as the literary quality of the original work. This translation avoids the graphic novel treatment of the classics in simplifying language and the plot. It is the full text in a format that is easily comprehended by most readers.

I won this copy of Beowulf from Goodreads, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Beowulf was one of my favorite pieces of required reading way back in high school (which was almost current with the original telling of the tale). Stephen Mitchell does a great job of translating the text to English you can understand, but maintaining some of the meter and alliteration of the original. Best of all, this Yale Press version has the original ancient English text on the page facing the modern translation, just in case you'd like to tackle the wild and crazy olde English. (Good luck, you Geat-wannabe.) It was great fun to get reacquainted with the Scandinavian hero! Thanks, Stephen Mitchell for the excellent work!

Beowulf, translated by Stephen Mitchell, is a free NetGalley ebook that I read in early October.A new translation of the classic poem alongside Olde English, it's still as mighty, vast, harkening, noble and brash as it ever was. I had no idea that there was uncertainty about the poem's true author, that there's a fifty-year gap between the first and second parts, is seen with a basis in Christianity but not mentioning it as much as an over-arcing monotheism, or that Beowolf is a prince (later a king) of the Geats from southern Sweden that assists the kingdom of Denmark with their invasive, devastating monster and sea-demon problem.