Seamus Heaney lives in Dublin and teaches at Harvard University. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature
in 1995.
Review
"Heaney is the one living poet who can rightfully claim to be the Beowulf poet's heir."
--Edward Mendelson, New York Times Book Review
The national bestseller; winner of the Whitbread Award. "A faithful rendering that is simultaneously an original
and gripping poem in its own right."
--New York Times Book Review
Norton Web Site, August, 2002
Summary
Composed toward the end of the first millennium, Beowulf is the classic Northern epic of a heroes triumphs as
a young warrior and his fated death as a defender of his people.
The poem is about encountering the monstrous, defeating it, and then having to live on, physically and psychically
exposed in the exhausted aftermath. It is not hard to draw parallels in this story to the historical curve of consciousness
in the twentieth century, but the poem also transcends such considerations, telling us psychological and spiritual
truths that are permanent and liberating.
In his new translation, Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney has produced a work that is both true, line by line, to the
original poem and a fundamental expression of his own creative gift.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Old English Language and Poetics
Translator's Introduction
The Text of Beowulf
p. 1
Contexts
p. 79
The Beowulf Manuscript
p. 81
Genesis 4.1-16: Cain and Abel
p. 84
Hall-Feasts and the Queen
p. 85
Grettir the Strong and the Trollwoman
p. 86
The Frisian Slaughter: Episode and Fragment
p. 89
"What has Ingeld to do with Christ?"
p. 91
History of the Franks [Hygelac's Raid into Frisia]
p. 93
[Genealogy of the Royal Family of Wessex]
p. 93
On the Wars between the Swedes and the Geats
p. 94
Genealogies of the Royal Families in Beowulf
p. 95
The Kingdoms and Tribes of Beowulf
p. 96
Map: The Scandinavian Setting of Beowulf
p. 97
Beowulf's Name
p. 98
Criticism
p. 101
Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics
p. 103
The Interlace Structure of Beowulf
p. 130
The Structural Unity of Beowulf: The Problem of Grendel's Mother
p. 152
The Beowulf Poet's Sense of History
p. 167
The Tomb of Beowulf
p. 181
The Christian Language and Theme of Beowulf
p. 197
Archaeology and Beowulf
p. 212
The Philologer Poet: Seamus Heaney and the Translation of Beowulf
p. 237
Glossary of Personal Names
p. 248
Selected Bibliography
p. 251
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.
