what translation do you recommend? i've read Heaney's.
ENGLISH MAJOR NERD CONTENT FOLLOWS: YOU'VE BEEN WARNED! And it will be loooong...
I've just acquired a few of them, so haven't read them all yet. But of the ones I have read, I also prefer Heaney's as my personal favorite. However, I really think it depends on the person and their own preferences. For instance, I have two translations by Kevin Crossley-Holland. One of them is a fairly standard poetic interpretation which is fine in its own right, but otherwise unremarkable. The other is a prose version with plenty of illustrations. I feel it would be great for a younger child - maybe 10-12ish - to get into the story. The Raffel translation is also quite good, though a bit easier to read, so perhaps better for someone who isn't as into Old English and all that. But I DO like how he segmented it into "chapters" of sorts, as that helps to make the breaks and scenes easier to understand.
After that, I've got three prose translations that I have yet to read. Perhaps it's my English major snobbishness, but I feel like it's almost an insult to try and say you've recaptured the original while having so utterly changed its presentation. So while I can't say much because I haven't read them, I also find myself wary of reading them. Perhaps I'll be wrong and love them, but I just find it odd that one of them is a "Norton Critical Edition" that involves all sorts of critiques, essays, and associated materials, but then absolutely changes the entire format of the document that it is discussing.
I've also got a full-on modern comic interpretation called
Invalid Link Removed, wherein the story is about a group of young children protecting the riches (candy) of their hall (a tree house) from the adults (I believe the city zoning board?). I haven't read more than a few pages of that one, but for as purposely different it is from the original, it managed to keep the tone and even much of the style of the language intact. It is quite the achievement, and also has some great comedy happening as well. I can forgive its differences since the entire purpose was NOT to present it as the original, but as a modern and comedic take on the story as a whole. There's also a version of it from Grendel's perspective, but I haven't read that yet either. From what I've read regarding it, it tries to flesh out Grendel's character and gives him a backstory, having him explain why he's attacking etc. Seems interesting, if not accurate to the original.
I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention Tolkien's work. As the preeminent scholar of his day on the Anglo-Saxons and Beowulf, as well as my favorite author ever, I absolutely love his contributions to the study of Beowulf at large. I found his prose interpretation to be quite good, whereas it didn't "dumb down" the content at all like many other prose translations seem to do. It still uses all sorts of archaic terms and phrases like Tolkien is wont to do, but doesn't quite have the appeal to me of the Heaney poetic version. I feel this story benefits from the poem format. What I will say I absolutely love about Tolkien's work is "Sellic Spell" and "The Lay of Beowulf". "Sellic Spell" is Tolkien's attempt to re-create what he thinks may have been a sort of "original" Beowulf - before its Christian veneer was applied. Since he was such the expert in the filed, I'm inclined to believe that he knew what he was doing and found it quite entertaining. The "Lay of Beowulf" is an excellent, if highly condensed, poetic take on Beowulf. I absolutely love the meter and cadence of the poem, but it really focuses only on Beowulf's arrival to Heorot and his killing of Grendel - nothing else is really mentioned. It makes me wish Tolkien had done a full poetic take on the poem. Finally - I just received a copy of Tolkien's essay on Beowulf (which isn't in Tolkien's book containing Beowulf for some reason...), but I haven't read it yet. I need to, but that's just extra and isn't actually a version of Beowulf itself.
OK - all that having been said, I also have a few film versions. The CGI Beowulf from the mid-2000s is alright. It's in some ways the most true to the surviving story, but also NONE of the film versions is very accurate to the text as it survives. My favorite so far has been "Beowulf & Grendel", a Swedish film starring Gerard Butler. While it has many deviations from the original, I feel it is similar to Tolkien's "Sellic Spell" in that it feels "authentic" to what the original story may have been. It is also a solid film overall, and makes you think a little bit. "Grendel Grendel Grendel" is an animated version of the book from Grendel's perspective, but I haven't watched it yet. The 13th Warrior (starring Antonio Banderas) was a competent movie, and certainly was inspired by Beowulf, but has plenty of deviation. It's an enjoyable film, and has its own interesting historical tidbits and characters to show you, but if you're looking for Beowulf, I'd look somewhere else. There's also Christopher Lambert's Beowulf, but it's plain late 90's/early 2000s sci-fi cheese. You can see the resemblance to Beowulf, and it's enjoyable in a B-movie sense. The final film version I have is Outlander starring Jim Caviezel. It's also sci-fi, as the Beowulf character is a space warrior who crash lands on a primitive planet and must hunt the creature that escaped from his ship. Again, plenty of inspiration from Beowulf, and actually closer than some other film versions, but NOT Beowulf. It was still an entertaining movie, though, and if you're just looking for a fun action flick, fits the bill quite well. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this film.
Well, you probably weren't looking for a full essay, but it's too late for that. Hopefully you get something from this review! Have you read more than Heaney's translation? Do you have any other film versions you're aware of? I'm also doing something similar with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but it doesn't seem to have as many versions as Beowulf.
