xxx + 106 pp. A verse translation by a Nobel laureate; winner of the Whitbread Prize. Reissued in many reprints and formats. The work was commissioned by publisher W. W. Norton & Co. and was included in the Norton Anthology of English Literature beginning with the anthology's 7th edition (2000); however, Norton permitted Heaney's usual publishers (Faber & Faber in London, and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux in New York) to release and market the translation first as a freestanding book.

The translation is preceded by a substantial introduction (ix-xxx) in which Heaney discusses in some detail his aesthetic choices; it is followed by genealogical tables (101), "A Note on Names" by Alfred David (103), and Heaney's acknowledgments (105-6). The first page of the translation is presented en face with the corresponding Old English text, taken from George Jack's student edition. Throughout, the translation is accompanied by marginal plot notes.

The full translation incorporates (sometimes with light revision) several passages that had previously been published as individual poems, beginning with "A Ship of Death" (1987). Heaney's work on this translation would continue to influence his poetry in the years following its publication; some poems in his Electric Light (2003) draw on it directly.

The translation begins:

So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by
and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.
We have heard of those princes' heroic campaigns.

There was Shield Sheafson, scourge of many tribes,
a wrecker of mead-benches, rampaging among foes.
This terror of the hall-troops had come far.
A foundling to start with, he would flourish later on
as his powers waxed and his worth was proved.
In the end each clan on the outlying coasts
beyond the whale-road had to yield to him
and begin to pay tribute. That was one good king. (3)

And ends:

Then twelve warriors rode around the tomb,
chieftains' sons, champions in battle,
all of them distraught, chanting in dirges,
mourning his loss as a man and a king.
They extolled his heroic nature and exploits
and gave thanks for his greatness; which was the proper thing
for a man should praise a prince whom he holds dear
and cherish his memory when that moment comes
when he has to be convoyed from his bodily home.
So the Geat people, his hearth-companions,
sorrowed for the lord who had been laid low.
They said that of all the kings upon the earth
he was the man most gracious and fair-minded,
kindest to his people and keenest to win fame. (99)

The extract given from Jack's edition begins:

Hwæt wē Gār-Dena     in geārdagum,
þēodcyninga     þrym gefrūnon,
hū ðā æþelingas     ellen fremedon.

Oft Scyld Scēfing     sceaþena þrēatum,
monegum mǣgþum     meodosetla oftēah,
egsode eorl[as],     syððan ǣrest wearð
fēasceaft funden;     hē þæs frōfre gebād,
wēox under wolcnum,     weorðmyndum þāh,
oðþæt him ǣghwylc þ[ǣr]     ymbsittendra
ofer hronrāde     hȳran scolde,
gomban byldan.     Þæt wæs gōd cyning! (2)

And ends:

Him ðā Scyld gewāt     tō gescæphwile,
felahror fēran     on Frēan wǣre.
Hī hyne þā ætbǣron     tō brimes faroðe,
swǣse gesīþas,     swā hē selfa bæd, (2; concluding comma sic)

• Floyd Collins, "Epilogue: Beowulf and Electric Light," in Seamus Heaney: The Crisis of Identity (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2003), 196-222 and 231-32.

• Daniel Donoghue, “The Languages of Beowulf between Klaeber and Heaney,” in Beowulf at Kalamazoo: Essays on Translation and Performance, ed. Jana K. Schulman and Paul E. Szarmach (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2012), 15-30.

• Seamus Heaney, “The Impact of Translation,” in The Government of the Tongue: Selected Prose (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1988), 36-44.

• Chris Jones, Strange Likeness: The Use of Old English in Twentieth-Century Poetry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), chap. 4, “Old English Escape Routes: Seamus Heaney—the Caedmon of the North” (pp. 182-237).

• Hugh Magennis, "Translating Beowulf: Edwin Morgan and Seamus Heaney," in Modern Irish and Scottish Poetry, ed. Peter Mackay, Edna Longley, and Fran Brearton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 147-60.

• Hugh Magennis, Translating Beowulf: Modern Versions in English Verse (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2011).

• Conor McCarthy, "Beowulf," chap. 3 of Seamus Heaney and Medieval Poetry (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2008), 86-126.

• Rory McTurk, "'Let Beowulf Now Be a Book from Ireland': What Would Henryson or Tolkien Say?" in Translating Early Medieval Poetry: Transformation, Reception, Interpretation, ed. Tom Birkett and Kirsty March-Lyons (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2017), 75-91.

• Robin Norris, “From Beowulf to ‘Heaneywulf’: Bookending the British Literature Survey,” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 14.2 (2007): 57-69.

• Dennis O'Driscoll, "'In a Wooden O': Field Day, Oxford Professor of Poetry, Translation," in Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008), 414-43, at 435-43.

BAM.