Beowulf Seamus Heaney Essay
Seamus Heaney on Beowulf and his verse translation
And now this is ‘an inheritance’ – Upright, rudimentary, unshiftably planked In the long ago, yet willable forward Again and again and again. 1 BEOWULF: THE POEM
The poem called Beowulf was composed some time between the middle of the seventh and the end of the tenth century of the first millennium, in the language that is today called Anglo-Saxon or Old English. It is a heroic narrative, more than three thousand lines long, concerning the deeds of a Scandinavian prince, also called Beowulf, and it stands as one of the foundation works of poetry in English. The fact that the English language has changed so much in the last thousand years means, however, that the poem is now generally read in translation and mostly in English courses at schools and universities. This has contributed to the impression that is was written (as Osip Madelstam said of The Divine Comedy) ‘on official paper’, …show more content…
First we meet the Danes – variously known as Shieldings (after Shield Sheafson, the founder of their line), the Ingwins, the Spear-Danes, the Bright-Danes, the West-Danes, and so on – a people in the full summer of their power, symbolized by the high hall built by King Hrothgar, one ‘meant to be a wonder of the world’ The threat to this superb people comes from within their own borders, from marshes beyond the pale, from the bottom of the haunted mere where ‘Cain’s clan’, in the shape of Grendel and his troll-dam, trawl and scavenge and bide their time. But it also comes from without, from the Heathobards, for example, whom the Danes have defeated in battle and from whom they can therefore expect retaliatory war (see lines
And now this is ‘an inheritance’ – Upright, rudimentary, unshiftably planked In the long ago, yet willable forward Again and again and again. 1 BEOWULF: THE POEM
The poem called Beowulf was composed some time between the middle of the seventh and the end of the tenth century of the first millennium, in the language that is today called Anglo-Saxon or Old English. It is a heroic narrative, more than three thousand lines long, concerning the deeds of a Scandinavian prince, also called Beowulf, and it stands as one of the foundation works of poetry in English. The fact that the English language has changed so much in the last thousand years means, however, that the poem is now generally read in translation and mostly in English courses at schools and universities. This has contributed to the impression that is was written (as Osip Madelstam said of The Divine Comedy) ‘on official paper’, …show more content…
First we meet the Danes – variously known as Shieldings (after Shield Sheafson, the founder of their line), the Ingwins, the Spear-Danes, the Bright-Danes, the West-Danes, and so on – a people in the full summer of their power, symbolized by the high hall built by King Hrothgar, one ‘meant to be a wonder of the world’ The threat to this superb people comes from within their own borders, from marshes beyond the pale, from the bottom of the haunted mere where ‘Cain’s clan’, in the shape of Grendel and his troll-dam, trawl and scavenge and bide their time. But it also comes from without, from the Heathobards, for example, whom the Danes have defeated in battle and from whom they can therefore expect retaliatory war (see lines