This presentation of the translation and the Old English Text on facing pages allows the reader to approach the first major poem in English literature in a fresh and exciting new way. Includes a Guide to Reading Aloud, Introduction, Commentary and notes for translation from the original.
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“It is everywhere vigorous. . . . Chickering enjoys the poem immensely, and this attractive attitude shines everywhere. . . . This book is valuable for its extended literary appreciations and its facing text.” –Library Journal
“A fine book. . . . The essays on poetics, social history, and structure and the notes to specific passages survey the important scholarship.” –Choice
“A fine book. . . . The essays on poetics, social history, and structure and the notes to specific passages survey the important scholarship.” –Choice
From the Publisher
This presentation of the translation and the Old English Text on facing pages allows the reader to approach the first major poem in English literature in a fresh and exciting new way. Includes a Guide to Reading Aloud, Introduction, Commentary and notes for translation from the original.
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Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
Format:Paperback
This is a great edition of a great cultural treasure. It not only provides the original language text and a very solid modern English translation, it has a huge number of helps that enable the modern reader and student to delve deeply into the text. These helps allow those of us with no real knowledge of Old English to gain some appreciation of how our language has transformed over the centuries.
Professor Chickering provides a wonderful guide to reading the Old English version out loud, which is a lot of fun to try. He also provides important context giving background of the poetic structures from the old times and what we benefit from noticing as we read this exciting tale.
He also provides background material on the manuscript and what we know about the origins and culture that gave rise to Beowulf. There is also a wonderful commentary on many key concepts in the story that enrich the reading of the story.
There is also a bibliography for further reading and a listing of glosses on selected passages.
Yes, the Seamus Heaney translation is beautiful and readable, but this one is much more useful for the student who wants to dig more deeply into the story and how it fits into our cultural heritage.
Format:Paperback
Useful for learning Old English. Get a copy of Beowulf read in Anglo-Saxon on CD in order to help you speak Anglo-Saxon. It is lovely, but hard to speak. This is a good book to learn to write Asatru rituals, but to speak to the living Gods in their own tongue you'll need recorded readings of Anglo-Saxon to teach yourself Old English.
This book is old Enough to buy a used copy.
Even at the new prices it is worth it, for any student of Old English
This book is old Enough to buy a used copy.
Even at the new prices it is worth it, for any student of Old English
By Reader in NC
Format:Paperback
After reading about the immense influence of Beowulf on Tolkien in "Celebrating Middle-Earth", I reread it in this translation. It is powerful and moves along rapidly. It captures the strong yet poetic use of words and brings out changes of mood brilliantly.
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4.9 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Worthwhile
This is a very good book for those interested in Beowulf. In fact, it's as close to my idea of an "ideal" version that I can find. Read more
Published on Oct 23 2001
5.0 out of 5 stars
Splendid translation by splendid translator
Professor Chickering of Amherst College was my professor a few years back and he never even mentioned his extraordinary translation of Beowulf to our class! Read more
Published on April 10 2000
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beowulf as it was meant to be read.
Can't find Seamus Heaney's new translation of Beowulf? Buy this one. It's better. While Heaney's tranlslation is lyrical and poetic, with a distinct Gaelic flavor, Chickering's... Read more
Published on April 3 2000
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful Translation
This is certainly the finest translation of Beowulf, one that captures the craggy, monumental quality of the original Old English and yet conveys the elegiac tone so characteristic... Read more
Published on Feb 24 2000
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reading Beowulf
I am not a colledge student. I speak not a word of Old English. (Though I am working on German) I,in fact am a thirteen-year-old who cannot understand why he is the only person in... Read more
Published on Aug 11 1999 by SonjaRobn@aol.com
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb edition of Beowulf for the modern reader.
Professor Howell D. Chickering, Jr., of Amherst College has provided the indispensable edition of "Beowulf" for readers who, like this reviewer, know no Old English. Read more
Published on May 16 1999
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