Poem Written in a Copy of Beowulf
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- Genre/Type Descriptor(s)
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Poem or Poetry
Translation of Other - Language(s)
- English
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- Author
- Borges, Jorge Luis
- Translator
- Reid, Alastair
- Compiling Editor
- Kerrigan, Anthony
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- Contained in
- A Personal Anthology, ed. Anthony Kerrigan, [trans. Anthony Kerrigan and Alastair Reid].
- Location Details
- Page 202
- City
- New York
- Publisher
- Grove Press
- Date
- 1967
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- Relationships
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(Upstream) Translates -> Composición escrita en un ejemplar de la gesta de Bowulf, Borges, Jorge Luis (1961)(Downstream) Revised and recontextualized as -> Poem Written in a Copy of Beowulf, Borges, Jorge Luis (1972)(Downstream) Reproduced in new context as -> Poem Written in a Copy of Beowulf, Borges, Jorge Luis (1981)
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- Identifying Numbers
- MO2 1967(a); [Fry 172] (see Notes on Prior Documentation, below).
- Descriptive Notes
A translation from Spanish of Borges, "Composición escrita en un ejemplar de la gesta de B[e]owulf." (The misspelling in the title of the original is corrected in the translation, but the title of this book and its copyright page specify that the translations are from Antología personal [1961], so this record attaches to that 1961 text of the poem, not to its next appearance in El otro, el mismo [1964], where the title is also corrected.) The poem has also been translated by R. G. Barnes (1993).
The poem begins:
At various times, I have asked myself what reasons
moved me to study, while my night came down,
without particular hope of satisfaction,
the language of the blunt-tongued Anglo-Saxons. (202)And ends:
Beyond my anxiety, beyond this writing,
the universe waits, inexhaustible, inviting. (202)- Notes on Prior Documentation
Not in MO1 or GR. The mention of this translation in Fry 172 attributes it to Kerrigan, the editor of the volume in which it appears, rather than to the poem's translator, Reid. MO2 attributes correctly.
- Authentication
BAM.
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- Last Updated
- 05/18/2022