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This is a list of translations of Beowulf, one of the best-known Old English heroic epic poems. Beowulf has been translated many times in verse and in prose. By 2020, the Beowulf's Afterlives Bibliographic Database listed some 688 translations and other versions of the poem, from Thorkelin's 1787 transcription of the text, and in at least 38 languages.
Beowulf (/ ˈ b eɪ ə w ʊ l f /; [1] Old English: Bēowulf [ˈbeːowuɫf]) is an Old English epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and most often translated works of Old English literature.
Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary is a prose translation of the early medieval epic poem Beowulf from Old English to modern English. Translated by J. R. R. Tolkien from 1920 to 1926, it was edited by Tolkien's son Christopher and published posthumously in May 2014 by HarperCollins.
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, [1] matched by the large number of attempts to make the poem approachable, [2] and the scholarly attention given to the problem.
Over a thousand years ago, a writer (or writers) penned an epic poem about a warrior named Beowulf who must defeat an evil monster (the story is replete with power struggles, lots of killing and ...
"eternal Lord" Cædmon's hymn [3] dryhntes dreamas "the joys of the Lord" The Seafarer [4] heofones Dryhten "heaven's Lord" The Dream of the Rood [5] Ealdor [6] "Prince" wuldres Ealdor "Prince of Glory" The Dream of the Rood [7] Fæder "Father" Heahfæder "Highfather" The Dream of the Rood: Wuldorfæder "Glorious Father" Cædmon's hymn: Frea [8 ...
Here is a natural enough Modern English translation, although the phrasing of the Old English passage has often been stylistically preserved, even though it is not usual in Modern English: What! We Spear-Danes in ancient days inquired about the glory of the kings of the nation, how the princes performed bravery.
J. R. R. Tolkien contributed "On Translating Beowulf " as a preface entitled "Prefatory Remarks on Prose Translation of 'Beowulf'" to C. L. Wrenn's 1940 revision of John R. Clark Hall's book Beowulf and the Finnesburg Fragment, A Translation into Modern English Prose, which had first been published in 1901. [3]