Product Description

This is the story of a young man who travelled far across the sea to fight two terrifying monsters-one who could rip a man apart and drink his blood, the other who lived like a sea-wolf at the bottom of a dark, blood-stained lake. His name was Beowulf, and his story was written down in Anglo-Saxon in the eighth century. Kevin Crossley-Holland retells the story for children in strong, rhythmical prose, with striking illustrations by Charles Keeping. The paperback edition is now reissued with a new cover.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6913 in Books
• Published on: 1999-05-06
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 48 pages

Customer Reviews

Good beginner for Beowulf
I am reading this children's course for my graduate class in children's literature. It is a great recreation for children and uses literary devices in the actual beowulf. It is a little gruesome, as Beowulf typically is, and the illustrations aren't entirely intriquing and are only in black ink. However, they go well with the story. I would recommend this to young readers.

Grendel, "Finally, something I can sink my teeth in".
Actually Grendel did not say that. However this translation is something that you can sink your teeth in. There is a substantial introduction. At first you think it is too long. After reading the introduction you realize it is too short and knowing more about what Seamus Heaney accomplished, you wish half the book were the introduction. In the introduction He covers references to J.R.R. Tolkien's ""Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics", the average readers needed background knowledge and the reason he chose the particular words for this translation.
It is the words he chose to use and method of applying them that makes this translation palatable to the average reader. It may also be this translation that may grate on some people. This is like comparing the King James Version of the Bible to the Good News Bible. (However he is not transliterating or paraphrasing) The main idea is that this would be the translation if you were to verbalize the saga.

This is not just an early poem; it is an epic. The basic story was also used as a basis of many movies. We have people helping others in what appears to be a no win situation.

There are 200 plus pages with the original text on the left page. The text is numbers to correspond with numbers on the translated right page. On the far right is a synopsis of what you are reading. This synopsis helps keep you from wandering from the text to speculate on what is really being said. It does not hurt to listen to this book but the written word is crucial towards finding the origins of names and the way words are used.

At the end of the book is a diagram of the family trees and this helps visualize how the different clans are related. There is also a large print version so you do have to get out your magnifying glass.

I found it handy to keep a dictionary with me as he uses a wide variety of words as in different context than most novels or texts use them. Still the language is so clear that if you do not mind glossing over these words you will still get the story and enjoy reading the adventure.

Epic proportions
I once made the joke that Grendel was the first beo-degradable monster in history...

GROAN!

When I gave this joke to an English professor, he used it in class, and promptly returned it to me.

Okay. I'll accept that. But, Beowulf deserves the kind of serious attention that would prompt people to want to make bad jokes about it (unimportant things are ignored; only important things are held up in jest).

Beowulf is an old poem--often considered the first in English. This is technically not true, for linguistic and other reasons (where the demarcations of English beginnings fall are debatable; also there is the fact that there are older poems, just not epic poems). An epic is a long, narrative poem, a literary form undervalued today, but which was probably the equivalent of a Cecil B. DeMille production in more ancient times. The Illiad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, Gilgamesh--all these are epic poems. Generally, they recount heroic deeds, and most often were composed and intended as oral history. Beowulf consists of 3182 existing lines.

Scholars also disagree on the 'British heritage' of the poem, many believing it more likely to be an import from Anglo-Saxon European homelands than a composition original to the Britain. The tale does portray two leaders, Hrothgar, leader of the Danes, and Beowulf, leader of the Geats, a Swedish tribe. These are interconnected through generations of family intermarriages, and Beowulf because of this loyalty takes his men to help defend Hrothgar's home against the monster Grendel.

The tale of Beowulf involves heroism, sacrifice, loyalty, warfare, conflict and resolution--all the elements that go into a good action feature. It also has moral overtones (so it was meant to educate and inspire as well as entertain). It carries the strong message that a fighting man's allegiance to the overlord and to God should be absolute (something that is often instilled in soldiers of today). It is almost decidedly Klingon in the glorification of battle (in fact, I've often wondered if the Star Trek universe took a leaf out of this epic to create the Klingon idea)--Beowulf fights three battles (a holy trinity of battles, almost), dying gloriously in the final battle with a great dragon, after having lived an honourable and courageous life.

This story contains elements of both early Christianity and late paganism, however in some cases the Christian aspects may be later additions by monks who transcribed the manuscripts (monks were noted for doing that in many circumstances, including Biblical texts). The oldest existing manuscript dates from about the tenth century and is preserved in the British Museum.

This particular translation of Seamus Heaney (a 1995 Nobel laureate) is a beauty to behold. Opt for the dual language edition if possible, so that you may compare the Old English with Heaney's recreation -- his economy of language (often but not always found among Celtic poets) lends itself well to the simplicity and economy of the original Old English. Heaney does often maintain the alliterative flavour, but resorts to truer meanings rather than translation quirkiness. He also often has to recast the cadence of the verse, as Old English did a sort of four-step that modern words however simple often cannot emulate. Yet for all the criticism that may be levelled (and in Heaney's case, many fewer than most translations of Beowulf would have to bear), he was done perhaps the greatest service a translator can do to any work, particularly an ancient one -- he has breathed new life into the poetry so that the story and the language can live again.