Beowulf, again (and always!)

November 22, 2007 at 10:17 pm (Poetry)

There’s an excellent article in today’s Washington Post about Beowulf, the poem and the movie. Blake Gopnik is a writer whose coverage of the arts is unfailingly intelligent and perceptive. I am full of admiration for the fact that he studied this amazing masterpiece in the original Anglo-Saxon!

Several months ago, I read the Seamus Heaney translation and was struck by the utter strangeness of the world which I had unwittingly entered. Then I listened to the recorded version on the Naxos label of the Benedict Flynn translation, read by Crawford Logan. Ancient sagas like Beowulf were recited before they were written down, and listening to the poem is a different experience from reading it. I recommend highly the Naxos issue. I also want to take this opportunity once again to direct people to Benjamin Slade’s site, Beowulf in Steorarume (Beowulf in Cyberspace).

I have not seen the movie yet, but I’ll report back when I have…