Book description
Beowulf is the greatest surviving work of literature in Old English,
unparalleled in its epic grandeur and scope. It tells the story of the
heroic Beowulf and of his battles, first with the monster Grendel, who
has laid waste to the great hall of the Danish king Hrothgar, then
with Grendel's avenging mother, and finally with a dragon that
threatens to devastate his homeland. Through its blend of myth and
history, Beowulf vividly evokes a twilight world in which men and
supernatural forces live side by side. And it celebrates the endurance
of the human spirit in a transient world.
"Alexander's translation is marked by a conviction that it is
possible to be both ambitious and faithful [and] ...communicates the
poem with a care which goes beyond fidelity-to-meaning and reaches
fidelity of implication. May it go on ... to another half-million
copies." - Tom Shippey, Bulletin of the International Association
of University Professors of English
Michael Alexander is Berry Professor of English Literature at the
University of St Andrews. For Penguin he has translated, 'The Earliest
English Poems', 'The Canterbury Tales: The First Fragment', as well as a
prose translation of BEOWULF.
