 First Edition (Faber and Faber) | |
| Author | Anonymous (the Beowulf poet) |
|---|---|
| Translator | Seamus Heaney |
| Language | English, Old English |
| Subject | Old English poetry |
| Genre | Epic poetry |
| Published | 1999 |
| Publisher | Farrar, Straus, and Giroux Faber and Faber |
| Pages | 256 |
| ISBN | 978-0374111199 |
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (also known as Heaneywulf[1]) is a verse translation of the Old English epic poem Beowulf into modern English by the Irish poet and playwright Seamus Heaney. It was published in 1999 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and Faber and Faber, and won that year's Whitbread Book of the Year Award.
The book was widely but not universally welcomed by critics, scholars, and poets in Britain and America. The poet Andrew Motion wrote that Heaney had made a masterpiece out of a masterpiece, while David Donoghue called it a brilliant translation. The critic Terry Eagleton wrote that Heaney had superb control of language and had made a magnificent translation, but that Heaney had failed to notice that treating British and Irish culture as one was a liberal Unionist viewpoint. Howell Chickering noted that there had been many translations, and that it was impossible for any translation to be pure Beowulf, as no translation of the poem could be faithful. He admired the dramatic speeches, but was doubtful of Heaney's occasional use of Northern Irish dialect, as it meant he was writing in "two different Englishes". The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey wrote that if Heaney thought his dialect had somehow maintained a native purity, he was deluded.