- Trainer/in: Sarah Jane Brazil
Although it survives in only one manuscript, there have been many attempts to translate the famous Old English poem Beowulf, thus giving rise to many Beowulfs. This BA seminar will encounter the poem in two recent translations; that of Irish poet Seamus Heaney (1999) and American author Maria Dahvana Headley (2020). We will probe the perspectives they open up on the poem, and those they may foreclose. Heaney’s work aimed to look at a canonical English text from a post-colonial vantage point, while Dahvana Headley challenges the privileged position of men and was intent on giving Grendel’s mother her dues. With an interrogation of these critical principles in mind, students will study how both writers bridge the medieval and the contemporary.
We will use the following editions. They are available from Payot, but you can also buy online using these exact ISBNs:
Heaney, Seamus. “Beowulf: A New Verse Translation. Bilingual Edition”. Norton, 2001. ISBN: 978-0-393-32097-8
Dahvana Headley, Maria. “Beowulf: A New Translation”. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020. ISBN: 978-0-374-11003-1