Seamus Heaney lives in Dublin and teaches at Harvard University. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in
1995. His most recent book of poems is Opened Ground (FSG, 1998).
Review
"A faithful rendering that is simultaneously an original and gripping poem in its own right...[Heaney is]
the one living poet who can rightfully claim to be the Beowulf poet's heir."
--Edward Mendelson, New York Times Book Review
W.W. Norton & Company Web Site, March, 2001
Summary
Composed toward the end of the first millennium, Beowulf is the classic Northern epic of a hero's 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
Table of Contents
Introduction ix
A Note on Names xxxi
Beowulf 2
Family Trees 217
Acknowledgements 219
