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Lark Benobi's Reviews > Beowulf: A New Translation
Beowulf: A New Translation
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by
Lark Benobi's review
bookshelves: 2022, 2023, words-without-borders
Dec 11, 2022
bookshelves: 2022, 2023, words-without-borders
Read 2 times. Last read October 6, 2023 to October 7, 2023.
I've read maybe six zillion translations of Beowulf. I think Benjamin Bagby's meticulous striving to perform the poem
exactly as it might have been performed in Year 900
is a wonder of interpretation. and a triumph of art...and I NEVER thought I'd love a modern translation more than I love Seamus Heaney's 2000 translation...and yet, here we are. Here is this amazing, surprising, baldly new re-interpretation of Beowulf that is somehow also deeply, fundamentally respectful of the original poem. I'm gob-smacked. Maria Dahvana Headley's extraordinary attention to this oldest of extant English poems has given me my favorite reading experience of the year, and wow, that's a wonderful thing to realize after such a stellar year of reading many amazing books.
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Reading Progress
December 9, 2022
–
Started Reading
December 11, 2022
– Shelved
December 11, 2022
– Shelved as:
2022
December 11, 2022
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Finished Reading
October 6, 2023
–
Started Reading
October 6, 2023
– Shelved as:
2023
October 6, 2023
–
0.0%
"Bro, I love how J.D. Jackson (the narrator) sounds like Charles Bukowski's younger brother."
page
0
October 7, 2023
–
Finished Reading
December 22, 2023
– Shelved as:
words-without-borders
Comments Showing 1-5 of 5 (5 new)
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message 1:
by
Carol
(new)
Dec 12, 2022 02:47AM
yes, it's brilliant & daring & laugh out loud, now you might want to pick up Stephanie McCarter's new translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses
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Thanks, Carol. I’ve never found a Metamorphosis translation I love which is a problem since I don’t know Latin.
I like McCarter's so much I bought the Latin & am reading them side by side
I've been putting off reading this because I can't imagine anything better than Heaney, but this review might make me move it up.
Mab wrote: "I've been putting off reading this because I can't imagine anything better than Heaney, but this review might make me move it up."Mab, it’s so different. Reverent in its own way. I LOVED the audiobook!
