Beowulf (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780300236668)

A widely celebrated translator's vivid, accessible, and elegantly concise rendering of an ancient English masterpiece

Beowulf tells the story of a Scandinavian hero who defeats three evil creatures--a huge, cannibalistic ogre named Grendel, Grendel's monstrous mother, and a dragon--and then dies, mortally wounded during his last encounter. If the definition of a superhero is "someone who uses his special powers to fight evil," then Beowulf is our first English superhero story, and arguably our best. It is also a deeply pious poem, so bold in its reverence for a virtuous pagan past that it teeters on the edge of heresy. From beginning to end, we feel we are in the hands of a master storyteller.

Stephen Mitchell's marvelously clear and vivid rendering re-creates the robust masculine music of the original. It both hews closely to the meaning of the Old English and captures its wild energy and vitality, not just as a deep "work of literature" but also as a rousing entertainment that can still stir our feelings and rivet our attention today, after more than a thousand years. This new translation--spare, sinuous, vigorous in its narration, and translucent in its poetry--makes a masterpiece accessible to everyone.


Author: Stephen Mitchell
ISBN-10: 0300236662
ISBN-13: 9780300236668
Publisher: Yale University Press
Language: English
Published: 08/21/2018
Pages: 264
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.65lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.20w x 0.60d