Select A Store
Select Store
My Store:
Select A Store
Availability:
$7.99
Used
-
Trade Paperback
-
9780393320978
Overview
Overview
Composed toward the end of the first millennium, Beowulf is the elegiac narrative of the adventures of Beowulf, a Scandinavian hero who saves the Danes from the seemingly invincible monster Grendel and, later, from Grendel's mother. He then returns to his own country and dies in old age in a vivid fight against a dragon. The poem is about encountering the monstrous, defeating it, and then having to live on in the exhausted aftermath. In the contours of this story, at once remote and uncannily familiar at the beginning of the twenty-first century, Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney finds a resonance that summons power to the poetry from deep beneath its surface. Drawn to what he has called the "four-squareness of the utterance" in Beowulf and its immense emotional credibility, Heaney gives these epic qualities new and convincing reality for the contemporary reader.
- Format: TradePaperback
- Author: Heaney, Seamus
- ISBN: 9780393320978
- Condition: Used
- Dimensions: 8.30 x 0.69
- Number Of Pages: 256
- Publication Year: 2001
Customer Reviews
Rating Snapshot
5 ★
50%
4 ★
50%
3 ★
0%
2 ★
0%
1 ★
0%
2 Ratings
0
0% Would Recommend
0 Recommendations
Review Images
Sort by:
-
Good for what it is.
Donna A. - 5 years 1 month agoRead for a class. Don't like British literature. Good translation, easy to read if you keep in mind the Scottish dialect.
-
Finally, an Accessible Beowulf!
Holden L. - 6 years agoIf you’ve ever become frustrated by trying to read “Beowulf,” I have good news for you. Nobel prize-winning poet, Seamus Heaney, has written a verse translation that retains the best aspects of the old English/Saxon epic while telling the story in modern English. As a poet, Heaney, sought not just to translate, but to preserve the meter, timing, and spirit of the original. The result is a very enjoyable read without the distraction of multiple footnotes/explications. I also found his introduction to be interesting and helpful. For purists and masochists, the book has the original verse on the facing page. Seriously, I recommend this book for anyone who has ever struggled with Beowulf.