Maria Dahvana Headley

Beowulf

A new, feminist translation of Beowulf by the author of the much-buzzed-about novel The Mere Wife Nearly twenty years after Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf—and fifty years after the translation that continues to torment high-school students around the world—there is a radical new verse translation of the epic poem by Maria Dahvana Headley, which brings to light elements that have never before been translated into English, recontextualizing the binary narrative of monsters and heroes into a tale in which the two categories often entwine, justice is rarely served, and dragons live among us. A man seeks to prove himself as a hero. A monster seeks silence in his territory. A warrior seeks to avenge her murdered son. A dragon ends it all. The familiar elements of the epic poem are seen with a novelist’s eye toward gender, genre, and history—Beowulf has always been a tale of entitlement and encroachment, powerful men seeking to become more powerful, and one woman seeking justice for her child, but this version brings new context to an old story. While crafting her contemporary adaptation of Beowulf, Headley unearthed significant shifts lost over centuries of translation.

A New Translation

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I have to admit, I have never read a complete translation of Beowulf before, I’ve only read a retelling from a book on World Mythology. Headley translates Beowulf in a somewhat-casual style, using phrases like “bro”, “hashtag: blessed”, which in truth, makes a classic text easier to read, and might chuckle you a bit as a reader. What’s interesting is Headley reimagines Grendel’s mother as a strong female warrior instead of a monster who wreaks havoc. Headley writes, in the prologue the importance of women in Beowulf, and how this text isn’t only about men. This translation manages to create something new that encapsulates the thoughts of the original text. I love how the words Headley use flows, and easy to read.

Luke Toop

Ryan LaFerney

Bro! You wanna read about man who seeks to prove himself a hero? A monster who seeks silence in his territory? The warrior who seeks to avenge her murdered son? And the dragon that ends it all? Bro, you ain't read a translation like Maria Dahvana Headley's. She's gonna mess with your expectations when it comes to reading this epic poem. With a fresh eye towards gender, genre, and history, Headley turns Beowulf inside out to provide new context to an old story. And bro, it's astounding. Headley's translation manages to make the story fresh and relevant for a new generation and may I say, her translation, is one of the more illuminating translations to ever be written. Why? Sure, Beowulf has elements of heroic masculinity and fool heartedness that we have come to enjoy and associate with the poem and it is true, that Beowulf is a meditation of the nature of "goodness" and what it means to be in service of others and the importance of community (it is no mistake that Beowulf dies alone by the dragon at the end of the poem - leaving his community vulnerable to attack). It's also a meditation on life and death (Beowulf is told at one point to: "Keep yourself on an even keel, aiming your ambition at eternity, instead of the everyday."). However, in Headley's hands, this epic poem highlights the sense of male entitlement and encroachment that pervades the story while giving voice to the women that other translators often sideline. The women here are given more agency and are given more emphatic storylines. Grendel's mother for instance, is depicted not as a monster but as a "warrior-woman" who in her mourning, takes to feud-rule vengeance for the death of her son. Her pain is depicted well by Headley.
Beowulf is a morality tale and a mediation on leadership. It's a warning that we must take care of others, avoid greed, avarice, and glory, and it warns us that feud-rule vengeance only begets more blood shed. Our heroes, our politicians - they're complicated gods and Headley's version of Beowulf reveals that hagiography is often not the whole picture. Headley's translation is accessible, fun, lively, and lyrical and it paints an even more complex portrait of Scandinavia in the 6th century as well as our our current times (2020). She proves that this Old English epic is truly timeless. So, bro don't hate. Pick this up. It will blow your mind.

Fraser Simons

I would not be eaten, nor beaten, no skewered and swimmer I,
no drowned dinner for a circle of cold companions,
gobbling my guts, glutted on my gold.

Beowulf giving ‘zero shits’ and the numerous Bro!’s won’t be for everyone, and that’s okay. Usually, a translation endeavors to be “timeless” so that no matter when it is consumed, it can be reasonably well understood. This approach narrows the translator's available word choice, eliminating popular vernacular, cadence, and jargon in favor of the antiquated versions of these things, as well as the original interpretations of the story itself. These translations end up becoming less evocative and, counter-intuitively, less accessible than they endeavor to be.
This translation discards these in-built assumptions regarding what is “desirable” of a translated text.

There is something of a renaissance happening in translations of classics. Feminist perspectives such as Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey and Madeline Miller’s historical fiction books Circe and The Song of Achilles have revealed blind spots in previous translations. Beowulf belongs with these, another example of why challenging the defaultism present in previous work in this field is a fantastic thing.

“She’d surrendered son and brother here,
her home-hall become a brutal battlefield.
Innocent of crime, yet cursed, captured,
speared, worse. Hoc’s daughter was savaged
by sorrow, grief-gutted. Who wouldn’t weep,
as dawn drove feud-daggers deeper, the sun scoring
her son’s wounds, day breaking upon her dearest dead?
They’d been her heart, her happiness, her hopes.
War had wrung them ragged, dragged them to death
across a court of sword-crossed kin.”

Beowulf sports some of the most evocative prose I’ve ever encountered. In any text. While it can be jarring reading lines like, “Meanwhile, Beowulf gave zero shits.” one cannot say it is not accessible. People of all ages will understand. Nothing is opaque. Everything flows extremely well and still designed to be spoken aloud. It just works.

This may not be the case as time goes on. Popular terms and jargon fade away. But, cleverly, I think time will only prove to enshrine this text because it is grounded in the present moment. It reflects now rather than the past. It is more graceful and elegant by rooting itself in the present.

I wouldn’t ordinarily consider a new translation to be a modern classic because, while they may be “better” translations that others, they do not usually deviate from the text enough to be considered truly new. Perhaps it is more clear or has better flow and is more enjoyable to read as a result, but this new translation of Beowulf goes out of its way to differentiate itself.

It is a different interpretation of the text from a sociological standpoint, with a feminist perspective. The translation endeavors to distinguish itself from everything previously done. Bold in ambition, goals, and direction, Beowulf is transformed by Maria Dahvana Headley from the oldest story to something innovative and unique; a candidate for being considered a modern classic.

“Then another dirge rose, woven uninvited
by a Geatish woman, louder than the rest.
She tore her hair and screamed her horror
at the hell that was to come: more of the same.
Reaping raping, feasts of blood, iron fortunes
marching across her country claiming her body.
The sky sipped the smoke and smiled.”

Sunyi Dean

Stunning, subversive, and beautiful. I loved Heaney's version of Beowulf but this was truly lovely and wild, with all the piss taking braggadaxious rollicking humor and bittersweet angry tragedy of the original. In an academic sense this is a brilliant translation. And in a literary sense it's an enormously enjoyable read.

I would LOVE to see this done as a play or performance. I can envision it so easily in my head. Definitely going to read The Mere Wife.

Emily Perkovich

I have a theory that there are three types of people who enjoy Beowulf. The first is the person that enjoys the classic texts in general. The second is a high testosterone reader. And the third is the person who wishes to impress the high testosterone reader. Unfortunately for Beowulf, I fit none of these categories. I enjoyed this about as much as I did as a preteen in AP English. It’s hard to decide how to rate a translation that has been done before. I think the translation needs to have an equal weight to the actual storyline, since it is supposed to be purposeful and innovative. This seemed to be translated well enough, and therefore I didn’t give this one star. Which would be my immediate answer. Not into Beowulf.

Jeremy Anderberg

This old legend, to the surprise of everyone in our book club, was voted on as the April read. In our group, there’s not many who would consider themselves as being into epic poetry. And though we didn’t all love the story itself, it led to a really interesting discussion on masculine/feminine literature, the art of translation, and the modernization of old books.

Though I had previously never read the story, Beowulf is pretty common in high school and college courses for its importance to the English canon (it’s the oldest piece of literature written originally in English). The translation you’ve read if you’re in that camp was likely either JRR Tolkien—it was among his favorite tales—or Seamus Heaney. (I read Heaney before reading Headley; it’s a pretty quick story to read.) Those two admit to taking the text very seriously and bringing a masculine and kingly tone to their work.

Maria describes her translation as the feminist, modernized version of Beowulf. The first thing you notice is that it’s decidedly less formal language. The first lines are:

“Bro! Tell me we still know how to speak of kings! In the old days everyone knew what men were: brave, bold, glory-bound.”

Compare that to Heaney:

“So. The spear-danes in days gone by and the king who ruled them had courage and greatness. We have heard of those princes’ heroic campaigns.”

The real strength of Headley’s Beowulf is the long introduction that describers her reasoning for taking on the ur-text of English and her methodology for the language she chose. Whereas Tolkien and Heaney assumed a rather proper stance, Headley took the approach that this was more akin to the type of story being told by the guy at the bar who’s already had a few.

The story itself: I didn’t love Beowulf as a protagonist. It’s an action story, for sure, but without much character growth or movement. The first battle is exciting, thrilling, and novel; the second battle is still enticing enough to turn the pages; by the third battle, it seems a little repetitive. Beowulf starts as a great hero, ends as a great hero, and there’s just not much of a character arc.

Headley does such interesting things with the language, though, that it’s well worth reading. Each page brings a bit of a linguistic surprise and there are even plenty of laughs along the way—which is not something you’ll find in other translations.

If you think you know Beowulf, give it a shot. And definitely consider it for your book club; this is a book and a translation that beg to be talked about.

Daryl Houston

I've read a few translations of Beowulf but never one quite like this. At times, she takes the "bro" approach a little farther than I found especially appealing, but by and large it works, and she introduces some delightful kennings. This is an accessible and lively and engaging translation, and reading it made me want to read more of the author's work.

Ben Nathan

A beautiful Beowulf full of illustrative alliteration and good timing on the rhyming. Modernization made this more than just interesting and historic, but rather something I loved every moment of. BRO!

Beowulf

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