An Electrifying Beowulf

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. There have been many translations of the old English poem Beowulf over the years, including by some of the greats like J.R.R. Tolkien and Seamus Heaney. But there’s a new one by Maria Devana Headley, and Grant is nothing short of astonishing. One reviewer described it as electrifying, and I’d say that’s just about right. The poem Beowulf, it’s the story of the mighty hero’s battle with monsters and a dragon, may have been written as early as the 8th century. Nobody’s really sure. But one of Hedley’s many insights is that this epic tale is one that was meant to be shouted over a bunch of noisy people getting more and more drunk on mead.

And so she imagines this poem being told by the old guy sitting at the end of the bar from time to time, pounding his glass and demanding another. In fact, if you read Old English, you know that it often has this kind of pounding, straightforward rhythm. It’s marked by lots and lots of alliteration, and it’s very down-to-earth language. It’s not cerebral. Somebody once compared Old English poetry to the sound of a sack of potatoes being emptied. And it also has the occasional poetic kenning that we’ve talked about before, like referring to blood as battle sweat, or the sun as the sky candle.

And Hedley synthesizes all this with language that’s modern and inventive. She really creates something new. She does it in a way that I can’t really describe, except to say that what she does with Beowulf is sometimes like what Lin-Manuel Miranda did with Hamilton. So her version isn’t a strict word-for-word rendering, and there’s even the occasional profanity. But as she says, if you’re looking for the courtly romance in knights, there are other translations.

And let me give you an example. One nagging problem has always been how to translate that first word of the poem, you know, what. And what has been translated as behold or listen or attend and even what ho. Basically, it’s a windup that signals that a story is coming. Well, Hedley renders this as bro. And it could sound gimmicky, sure, but immediately you can hear this guy at the end of the bar commanding your attention.

Because he’s saying, bro, I’m about to tell you something amazing. I saw it with my own eyes. And really, the way to enjoy this, in my opinion, is to listen to the audio version of the book. It’s read by the actor J.D. Jackson. And I was absolutely captivated.

That sounds amazing, Martha.

Oh, we’ve got to put a link to that on the website. But you have to perform first for a second. You know the first line or so by heart of the original Beowulf, right?

Yeah, I do. I mean, I love the sound of it, but in modern English, it makes no sense. It goes, you know, it doesn’t make sense to the modern ear. But I can hear the rhythm that you were talking about right away.

Yeah, and the way that she renders that is, bro, tell me we still know how to talk about kings. In the old day, everyone knew what men were, brave, bold, glory-bound, only stories now. But I’ll sound the Speardane song hoarded for hungry time.

So you hear that alliteration too, but it’s thrilling. So she doesn’t go completely modern, but she’s got enough of it there that you can engage with both your appreciation of the literary history of the text, but also the modern ear. So you’ve got the two parts of you kind of engaging at once.

That’s exactly right.

And the way that she puts it in the introduction, and I know you’ll appreciate this, is she says, language is a living thing, and when it dies, it leaves bones. I dropped some fossils here next to some newborns.

Oh, lovely.

Right. That’s totally it, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So she’s creating almost this new language. And it’s, again, I think about Hamilton where you are watching the beginning of it and you think, he can’t keep this up for two and a half hours. And two and a half hours later, you’re there in tears because this story has so captivated you.

So it’s kind of like that. I might describe, I might take a different metaphor and describe it as when they’re digging in Rome for a new metro or subway and they come across a villa, a Roman villa from centuries ago. And they’re putting something in so modern, and yet they find something so ancient. And it’s people living in these old spaces with new ideas.

That’s perfect.

So I highly recommend that. It’s the new translation of Beowulf by Maria Devana Headley.

Lovely.

Thank you, Martha. We know we have a lot of readers in our crowd, and we know there are more books published every year than anyone could get to. And we’d love to hear your recommendations. Give us a call, 877-929-9673. Or send the links and the titles to us, words@waywordradio.org.