Keywords
Old English poetry
Translation
Beowulf
Tolkien
How to Cite
Abstract
The Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf exists in numerous translations into prose and verse of various forms and styles. While some translators use accentual metre and alliteration to evoke the form of the original, few attempt to reproduce its metre and structure exactly. Focussing on lines 210–28, this essay examines three metrically imitative translations of Beowulf by J.R.R. Tolkien, Ruth Lehmann, and Chris McCully, alongside Tolkien’s later prose translation. In juxtaposing Old and modern English, these imitative translations provide the ideal site to test Paul Fussell’s claim that the Old English alliterative verse form is no longer practicable. Close reading a select passage from these translations against the Old English text highlights their correspondence to and divergence from the original. It also reveals key differences in the poetic style and linguistic characteristics of Old and modern English. Through comparative analysis, this study demonstrates how efforts to replicate Old English metre may undermine other stylistic features and poetic effects, ultimately distorting the original. In contrast, Tolkien’s prose translation suggests that prose, while less bound to formal imitation, may retain a double fidelity to both the sound and meaning of the original.
References
Adams, Stephen. J. 1976. “A Case for Pound’s ‘Seafarer’.” Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature 9 (2): 127–46.
Alexander, Michael. 1974. Beowulf: A Verse Translation. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Alexander, Michael. 1994. “Old English Poetry into Modern English Verse.” Translation and Literature 3 (3): 69–75.
Bjork, Robert E., and John D. Niles. 1998. A Beowulf Handbook. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.
Bliss, A. J. 1962. An Introduction to Old English Metre. Oxford: Blackwell.
Bredehoft, Thomas A. 2005. Early English Metre. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Brodeur, Arthur Gilchrist. 1959. The Art of Beowulf. California: University of California Press.
Brooks, Britton. 2014. “Tolkien’s Technique of Translation in His Prose Beowulf: Literalism and Literariness.” Mallorn: The Journal of the Tolkien Society 55: 23–25.
Cossio, Andoni. 2024. “The Unpublished Mód Þrýþe Ne Wæg by C.S. Lewis: A Critical Edition.” Journal of Inklings studies 14 (1): 62–68.
Fulk, R. D, Robert Bjork, John Niles, eds. 2008. Klaeber’s Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Fussell, Paul. 1974. “English I. Historical.” In Versification: Major Language Types, edited by W. K. Wimsatt, 191–203. New York: New York University Press.
Goering, Nelson. 2015. “The Fall of Arthur and The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún: A Metrical Review of Three Modern English Alliterative Poems.” Journal of Inklings Studies 5 (2): 3–56.
Griffith, Mark. 2024. The Battle of Maldon: A New Critical Edition. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Hamel, Mary. 1984. Morte Arthure: A Critical Edition. London: Garland.
Jones, Chris. 2006. Strange Likeness: The Use of Old English in Twentieth-Century Poetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jones, Chris. 2018. Fossil Poetry: Anglo-Saxon and Linguistic Nativism in Nineteenth-Century Poetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Keppel-Jones, David. 2001. The Strict Metrical Tradition: Variations in the Literary Iambic Pentameter from Sidney and Spenser to Matthew Arnold. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Larrington, Carolyne, trans. 2019. The Poetic Edda. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lehmann, Ruth P. M. 1975. “Broken Cadences in Beowulf.” English Studies 56 (1): 1–13.
Lehmann, Ruth P. M. 1979. “Contrasting Rhythms of Old English and New English.” In Linguistic and Literary Studies in Honour of Archibald A. Hill, Volume 4: Linguistics and Literature / Sociolinguistics and Applied Linguistics, edited by Mohammad Ali Jazayeri, Edgar C. Polomé, and Werner Winter, 121–26. The Hague: De Gruyter Mouton.
Lehmann, Ruth P. M. 1988. Beowulf: An Imitative Translation. Texas: University of Texas Press.
Liuzza, R. M. 2013. Beowulf. Ontario: Broadview Press.
McCully, Chris. 2018. Beowulf: A New Translation. Manchester: Carcanet.
Magennis, Hugh. 2015. Translating Beowulf: Modern Versions in English Verse. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
Mitchell, Stephen. 2017. Beowulf. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Mitchell, Stephen. 2004. Gilgamesh: A New English Version. New York: Free Press.
Mitchell, Stephen. 2011. The Iliad. New York: Free Press.
Mitchell, Stephen. 2013. The Odyssey. New York: Atria Books.
Mitchell, Bruce, and Fred C Robinson. 2012. A Guide to Old English. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Orchard, Andy. 2003. A Critical Companion to Beowulf. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
Pascual, Rafael J. 2013. “Three Position Verses and the Metrical Practice of the Beowulf Poet.” SELIM. Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature 20: 49–79.
Pascual, Rafael J. 2014. “Ælfric’s Rhythmical Prose and the Study of Old English Metre.” English Studies 95: 803–23.
Pascual, Rafael J. 2016. “Old English Metrical History and the Composition of Widsið.” Neophilologus 100 (2): 289–302.
Pascual, Rafael J. 2017. “Manuscript Evidence and Metrical Authenticity: A Response to Seichi Suzuki.” Journal of Germanic Linguistics 29: 89–99.
Pascual, Rafael J. 2019. “Bliss’s Rule and Old English Metrics.” ANQ 32 (4): 209–13.
Paz, Octavio. 2017. “Translation: Literature and Letters.” Translated by Irene del Corral. In Theories of Translation: An Anthology of Essays from Dryden to Derrida, edited by Rainer Schulte and John Biguenet, 152–62. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Phelpstead, Carl. 2004. “Auden and the Inklings: An Alliterative Revival.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 103: 433–57.
Porter, John. 1991. Beowulf: Text and Translation. Pinner: Anglo-Saxon Books.
Pound, Ezra. 2010 “The Seafarer.” In Selected Poems and Translations, edited by Richard Sieburth, 24–6. London: Faber.
Rainey, Lawrence S. 2005. Modernism: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell.
Russom, Geoffrey. 2017. The Evolution of Verse Structure in Old and Middle English Poetry: from the Earliest Alliterative Poems to Iambic Pentameter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
“Ruth Preston Miller Lehmann.” Obituary. Austin American-Statesman, April 4, 2000.
Shippey, Tom. 2013. “Tolkien’s Development as a Writer of Alliterative Poetry in Modern English.” In Tolkien’s Poetry, edited by Julian Eilmann and Allan Turner, 11–28. Zurich: Walking Tree Publishers.
Sievers, Eduard. 1893. Altgermanische Metrik. Halle: M. Niemeyer.
Stanley, Eric G. 1992. “Initial Clusters of Unstressed Syllables in Half-Lines of Beowulf.” In Words, Texts and Manuscripts: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Culture Presented to Helmut Gneuss, edited by Michael Korhammer, 263–84. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
Strang, Barbara M. H. 2015. A History of English. London: Routledge.
Suzuki, Seiichi. 1995 “Anacrusis in the Meter of Beowulf.” Studies in Philology 92 (2): 141–63.
Terasawa, Jun. 2022. Old English Metre: An Introduction. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Tolkien, J. R. R. 1987. “King Sheave.” In The Lost Road and Other Writings: Language and Legend before The Lord of the Rings, edited by Christopher Tolkien, 87–91. London: Unwin Hyman.
Tolkien, J. R. R. 1995. Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien: A Selection. Edited by Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien. Glasgow: HarperCollins.
Tolkien, J. R. R. 2001. “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son.” In Tree and Leaf, edited by Christopher Tolkien, 121–42. London: HarperCollins.
Tolkien, J. R. R. 2006a. “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.” In The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays, edited by Christopher Tolkien, 5–48. London: HarperCollins.
Tolkien, J. R. R. 2006b. “On Translating Beowulf.” In The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays, edited by Christopher Tolkien, 49–71. London: HarperCollins.
Tolkien, J. R. R., trans. 2006c. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo. Edited by Christopher Tolkien. London: HarperCollins.
Tolkien, J. R. R. 2014. Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary. Edited by Christopher Tolkien. London: HarperCollins.
Tolkien, J. R. R. 2015. The Fall of Arthur. Edited by Christopher Tolkien. London: HarperCollins.
Tolkien, J. R. R. 2010a. “The New Lay of Gudrún.” In The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, edited by Christopher Tolkien, 251–308. London: HarperCollins.
Tolkien, J. R. R. 2010b. “The New Lay of the Völsungs.” In The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, edited by Christopher Tolkien, 59–180. London: HarperCollins.
Tolkien, J. R. R. 2019. “The Lay of the Children of Húrin.” In The Lays of Beleriand, edited by Christopher Tolkien, 3–130. London: HarperCollins.
Tolkien, J. R. R. 2024. The Collected Poems of J. R. R. Tolkien. Edited by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond. London: HarperCollins.
Wise, Dennis Wilson. 2023a. “Carved in Granite: C.S. Lewis’s Revivalism in The Nameless Isle.” Journal of Inklings Studies 13 (2): 151–79.
Wise, Dennis Wilson. 2023b. “Dating ‘Sweet Desire’: CS Lewis’s Education in Alliterative Poetics.” English Text Construction 16 (1): 82–108.
Wise, Dennis Wilson. 2023c. “A Tale of Two Essays: The Inklings on the Alliterative Meter.” Notes and Queries 70 (4): 310–12.
Wise, Dennis Wilson, ed. 2024. Speculative Poetry and the Modern Alliterative Revival: A Critical Anthology. Vancouver: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2025 SELIM. Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature