On Translating Beowulf
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"On Translating Beowulf" is an essay by J. R. R. Tolkien which discusses the difficulties faced by anyone attempting to translate the Old English heroic–elegiac poem Beowulf into modern English. It wa
A challenge to any translator: Beowulf parallel text of lines 210–228, with the inaccurate French of Hubert Pierquin, 1912
Beowulf Cotton MS Vitellius A XV f. 132r
Translating Beowulf
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The difficulty of translating Beowulf from its compact, metrical, alliterative form in a single surviving but damaged Old English manuscript into any modern language is considerable, matched by the la
On Translating Beowulf
…On Translating Beowulf" is an essay by J. R. R. Tolkien which discusses the difficulties faced by anyone attempting to translate the Old English heroic–elegiac poem Beowulf into modern English. It was first published in 1940 as a preface contributed by Tolkien to a translation…
Beowulf was traditionally believed to have been composed for performance and chanted by a scop to musical accompaniment. Illustration by Joseph Ratcliffe Skelton, c. 1910
Beowulf sails for Heorot. Illustration by J. R. Skelton
Updated monsters: Edwin Morgan translated nicera not as "necks" or "nixies" but as "krakens". 1870 illustration for Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas