Beowulf, A Longman Cultural Edition [Paperback]

Sarah Anderson (Editor), Alan Sullivan (Translator), Timothy Murphy (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0321107209 | ISBN-13: 978-0321107206 | Publication Date: January 17, 2004 | Edition: 1

From Longman's new Cultural Editions Series, Beowulf, edited by Sarah Anderson and translated by Alan Sullivan and Timothy Murphy, includes the complete work and contextual materials on the early medieval age.

 

 

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Sarah M. Anderson received her Ph.D. in Medieval Studies from Cornell University.  Before coming to Princeton, Anderson was a research fellow at The Arnamagnæan Institute at the University of Copenhagen, where she studied and edited Old Icelandic sagas; she also worked on the Dictionary of Old Norse Prose.  At Princeton, she is a member of both the Department of English and the Council of the Humanities. She specializes in early medieval language and literature, particularly in Old English, Old Norse and Old Icelandic, with strong secondary interests in textual criticism, Middle English literature and Arthuriana. As a fellow at Cornell’s Society for the Humanities, Anderson investigated early printed editions of the sagas from Iceland, Sweden, and Denmark, placing these editions in the context of contention for national identity. In addition to articles and reviews, her publications include Cold Counsel: Women in Old Norse Literature and Mythology (Routledge, 2002) and the Introduction, notes, glossary, and contextual material to Beowulf: A Longman’s Cultural Edition (Pearson, 2004). In the English department, Anderson teaches courses on Old English, Middle English romance, Arthurian literature, Old Icelandic sagas, comparative studies of early heroic literature, and fantasy; and in the Council of the Humanities, she has taught “Interdisciplinary Approaches to Western Culture from Antiquity to the Middle Ages.”  She is now developing courses on medieval concepts of monster, medieval travel narratives and sacred space, and medieval European representations of Arthur.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Longman; 1 edition (January 17, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321107209
• ISBN-13: 978-0321107206
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #304,270 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best of the Beowulfs, March 9, 2004

By 

Bruce McBirney (La Crescenta, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beowulf, A Longman Cultural Edition (Paperback)

Alan Sullivan and Tim Murphy's new translation of Beowulf is by far the best of the four translations I've read. (The others are the versions by Heaney, Rebsamen and Gummere, as well as selections from various others over the years.) If you're a general reader who's only likely to read one Beowulf, this is the one. And if you're a teacher who's deciding which translation to assign, I urge you to compare several passages at random from Sullivan and Murphy's version with the same passages from other versions. I'm confident you'll choose Sullivan and Murphy as well. (The wealth of literary and historical background material compiled by Sarah Anderson of Princeton is another reason why this edition is perfect for classroom use, but I'll focus here on the poem itself.)

There are several reasons why Sullivan and Murphy succeed so well. First, although the Old English of Beowulf is vastly different from modern English, Sullivan and Murphy have done a good job of approximating the sound of the original for the modern ear. They use a four-stress line (with a pause, or "caesura," between the second and third stresses) like the original. They also use strong alliteration like the original. (Typically in Old English verse, the third stressed syllable in a line begins with the same sound as one or both of the first two stressed syllables in that line. Sullivan and Murphy relax that pattern a bit, to avoid the stilted word choices that characterize some translations. But the strong alliteration can clearly be heard throughout their translation.) By contrast, though Heaney also uses a four-stress line, he greatly mutes the alliteration and the mid-line pause so that they often are scarcely noticeable.

When faced with a choice, Sullivan and Murphy also show a much stronger tendency to use the blunt, forceful words descended from Old English (as opposed to Latin-based words that arrived in English long after Beowulf). That seems appropriate for this particular poem.

While Sullivan and Murphy do a better job of capturing the music of the original, their version also reads much better and forcefully as modern English. Heaney's language sometimes sounds like comic book prose--very understandable, but not very memorable. Sullivan and Murphy are clear and understandable, too; but they're much better at catching the modern ear with just the right word or phrase. And they do so with greater economy. Because they have not bound themselves to winding up with the exact same number of lines as the original, as Heaney and some other tranlators have done, Sullivan and Murphy's version is a bit shorter, without losing any content.

It's certainly not my intent to minimize the achievement of other Beowulf translators, Heaney especially. He took a 1,200-year-old poem, brought it to a wide audience, and (with the help of the many teachers who assigned it) made it a best-seller. That's quite an accomplishment! And I enjoyed reading it. But I didn't feel the need to take the trip more than once. Sullivan and Murphy have made the voyage much more memorable, and well worth repeating!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Tradition Lives, March 8, 2004

By 

Len Krisak (Newton, Massachusetts United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beowulf, A Longman Cultural Edition (Paperback)

This newest translation of Beowulf is spectacularly vivid, passionate, accurate, and alive. I've read the Heaney version (along with 7 or 8 others), but this is the one I prefer. If you doubt the power of the verse, you need only listen to Timothy Murphy recite aloud what he and Alan Sullivan have done (and Sullivan is responsible for probably 90% of the text). In other words, there is nothing dry or dusty about this enterprise. The scrupulous adherence to a diction probably 70% Germanic in its origin saves this version from the longeurs of polysyllabic Latinate terms and helps turn this work from verse into exciting poetry.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the one!, June 23, 2006

By 

Robin Kemp (Jonesboro, GA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beowulf, A Longman Cultural Edition (Paperback)

Murphy and Sullivan's Beowulf is an ASTOUNDING contemporary English translation; its strong rhythm leaps from the page and waves its sword at you. The book as a whole is a course-in-a-text, with all the marvelous ancillary contextual readings and explanations surrounding Anglo-Saxon England (the Bede, etc.), translated variously from Latin, Old English, and Old Norse. I'd say this is THE book for undergraduate English majors (and grad students as well), as long as the prof also makes them learn to read the Old English with a supplementary text.

I've read and listened to Heaney's fine translation, but, if I may say so, this is the stronger poetry of the two. Heaney is better-known, but both Murphy and Sullivan are formidable poets in their own right--compare the two books side-by-side and see which version leaps off the page and into your blood.