Carolyn Barras, participant,
Loyola Summer Teachers Institute, “Making the Middle
Ages Fun,”
sponsored by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities
The story of Beowulf is much more than the three battle scenes that are included in most high school literature textbooks. With the number of affordable translations available, requiring the study of the entire epic poem as part of the curriculum is not unrealistic. As teachers, we often assign whole works which help to illustrate the lives of the people and their ideals within a given literary or historical period, but we often skip the Old English period. Why? Perhaps because earlier translations of Beowulf seem stilted and hard to understand. Maybe because few teachers studied Beowulf in-depth. With the variety of translations and representations of Beowulf, teachers should find some form of the story appropriate for the grade level they teach.
The following information may help new and veteran teachers find a suitable whole work to replace the skimpy story told in basal literature textbooks. My overall favorite is Roy Liuzza's translation. It is inexpensive, well-written, and contains good historical information.
Most on-line publishers charge a shipping and handling fee. Note that www.ecampus.com does not.
Translator/Editor
Critique
Publishing Info.
| Michael Alexander | Contains a short but good introduction which includes a brief introduction
of the history or myth of the Geats, Danes, and Swedes. Family tree
and a short index of proper names are included.
Note: Alexander also provides information in the Penguin Classics Old English verse text. |
Pricey: Lists for $8.95
www.ecampus.com $7.13 published 1973
|
| Michael Alexander | I found this Old English version with facing glossary extremely helpful when reading other translations. It gave me an idea of the sound-sense and the meaning of each line in the original poem. High School A.P. and above. | List Price $12.95--well worth
the addition to a teacher's resource collection www.ecampus.com $10.32 new, $9.06 used published 1995
|
| Howell D.
Chickering, Jr. |
A Norton Critical Edition
Good reference for a classroom teacher, this edition contains background, commentary, and a discussion of Old English and Middle English. |
Pricey: lists for $14.95
www.ecampus.com $11.92 new ISBN# 0-385-06213-3
|
| E. Talbot Donaldson
A Norton Critical Edition |
This is a prose translation. I think it loses much of
what Beowulf is about. Beowulf is not simply a story,
it is a beautiful poem. The lyrical quality is lost, in my opinion.
The inclusion of Robert C. Hughe's Origins of Old English, the geography, the historical essays, and the index makes this a very good resource for teachers of Beowulf. |
List Price: $9.50--still, a
good resource for teachers. www.borders.com $8.34 ISBN# 0-393-04413-0 CL
|
| Seamus Heaney | What a beautifully lyrical poem. This is the poem which as the voice of a poet--not a translator. As such, Heaney does use poetic license and does not strictly follow the original line for line--a minor point. The poem is presented in old English as well as modern English on facing pages, so it is a excellent buy. However, it is only available in hardback at this writing and it is expensive. I recommend this as part of a teacher's library to share with his or her students. | List Price $25.00--hardcover
www.amazon.com $17.50 same at borders.com ISBN# 0374111197
|
| Charles W. Kennedy | My first introduction to Kennedy's translation was in an old textbook, England in Literature, published by Scott, Foresman. I still enjoy his work. I recommend this translation for above-average to honors students at the high school level. | List Price $9.95
ecampus.com $8.73 borders.com $7.96 published 1978
|
| Ruth P.M.
Lehmann, professor emeritus of English at the University of Texas at Austin |
Getting students to read poetry is a task unto itself. What I like about this work is that Lehmann provides a good summary of the poem by section, and that her translation is easy to understand. This makes it very reader friendly. Her translation is a good version for 8th-12th grade students who might struggle through Liuzza's. It certainly contains the poetics: alliteration, caesura, metaphors, and while I think that it is a looser translation than most, it still gives a good feel for the people and ideals of the time period. | List Price $7.95
ecampus.com $6.75--delivery 1-2 weeks Beowulf: An Imitative Translation
|
| **********
Roy M. Liuzza Associate Professor of English, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA ********** |
This is one of my favorites, and I recommend this book for high
school honors and A.P. students.
This new translation is very readable yet still makes it seem a story of long ago. The historical information and literary discussions are extremely helpful for independent readers. An extended glossary of proper names will help students keep track of characters whose unfamiliar names seem to favor the letter h. The addition of samples from other Beowulf translations makes for good discussion and comparision. |
List Price $7.95 (softcover)
www.bn.com $7.15 copyright 2000 (published Oct. 1999)
|
| Burton Raffel | A familiar translation for teachers as many high school textbooks include his work. Good for 9-12 grade average to below-average readers. It contains a good glossary, the required geneology chart, and a very good discussion of Old English language, history, and song, as well as analysis of the story and characters, by Robert P. Creed in the Afterword. | List Price: $4.95
ecampus.com $3.94 copyright 1963
|
| Frederick Rebsamen | This translation is appropriate for 9-12th grade average readers; however, it would not be my choice. The lines seem very fragmented to me, which I found quite irritating as I read. He does summarize the action of the story and provides good commentary, and the price is right. | Price: $5.00
ecampus.com $3.98--usually ships in 3 days copyright 1991
|
Go to MidAges Home Page
http://www.loyno.edu/~MidAges/
e-mail me at gbarras@bellsouth.net