{"id":3507,"date":"2013-06-18T18:06:10","date_gmt":"2013-06-18T18:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/?p=3507"},"modified":"2017-12-02T23:35:19","modified_gmt":"2017-12-02T23:35:19","slug":"meghan-purvis-on-translating-beowulf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/2013\/06\/meghan-purvis-on-translating-beowulf\/","title":{"rendered":"Meghan Purvis: on translating Beowulf"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meghan Purvis introduces her bold new translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, out now<\/a> from Penned in the Margins.<\/h4>\n

I was in my third year of university when the professor of my History of the English Language class stood up at the front of the lecture hall and recited the opening of English\u2019s first epic poem. The hair on the back of my neck stood up \u2014<\/p>\n

Hw\u00e6t! We Gardena in geardagum,
\n\u00feeodcyninga, \u00ferym gefrunon,
\nhu \u00f0a \u00e6\u00feelingas ellen fremedon.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not because of the language, although Old English does beat out a rhythm that makes one\u2019s hands itch for a pair of oars. Not because of the story \u2014 although, having read Seamus Heaney<\/strong>\u2019s translation the year before, I was aware of the power of this story of a hero\u2019s journey to do battle with something that changes them forever. It was because the class was taught by Professor Jennifer Bryan<\/strong>, and it was the first time I\u2019d heard Old English spoken by a woman.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Seamus Heaney poses with a replica of the Sutton Hoo helmet<\/p>\n

There were, of course, women already working with Old English and Old Norse: Marijane Osborn<\/strong> in America, Heather O\u2019Donoghue<\/strong> in the United Kingdom, and others. But to a young woman still in university \u2014 even a good university, even one that often paid particular attention to under-represented voices \u2014 the idea that Beowulf<\/em> was a story I could tell was a new horizon beckoning.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I realised later that Beowulf<\/em> tends to attract translators who do not have their papers in order. Edwin Morgan<\/strong> was Scottish; Kevin Crossley-Holland<\/strong> discovered Anglo-Saxon literature after failing his first exams at Oxford; Heaney famously put a bawn<\/em>, a symbol of Anglo-Irish oppression, into his rendering. My translation comes from writing as a woman \u2014 usually destined to pour mead and wait for the family feud to erupt \u2014 and as an American. We have, all of us, snuck up to this poem while the gatekeepers were otherwise occupied. None of us came to this by birthright.<\/p>\n

And in doing this we follow our source material entirely. Scyld Scefing<\/strong> was a foundling who rose to become a legendary king. Beowulf<\/strong> was never meant to rule: he fell into it by outliving everyone else in line for the throne. The world of the poem is populated by people meant for other things, and who wanted something different. They went looking, and found lives marked out by a beating poetic line. But they, the characters, and we, the translators, also brought things with us in our boats: a way of thinking about a building with sentry towers, a name of a Norse god, a sympathy for the women left to ferry pitchers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Angelina Jolie plays Grendel’s mother in the 2007 film version of Beowulf<\/em><\/p>\n

My translation does some things with Beowulf<\/em> that differ dramatically from the source text, most particularly in my approach to the structure: I have split the poem up into a collection-length series of poems that tell the story. By doing so, my translation makes space for the many voices within Beowulf<\/em> that are often drowned out by a single narrator describing a single hero. This story is about Beowulf, yes; but it is also about the narrator of the poem, and about Modthryth<\/strong> and Hildeburh<\/strong>, about Grendel\u2019s mother<\/strong>, forever nameless. I have not given her a name, but I have given her and others more of a presence and, occasionally, a voice in the poem. Some people will say the shifts in focus and form I have made mean that this is not a translation. But my approach, like every approach to Beowulf<\/em>, is still real; each is just as accurate as another, because translation happens in the space between, in what is passed over and what is held up to the light. Professor Bryan may have been telling a slightly different slant, but I listened, and now, over ten years later, I am telling my story of Beowulf<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t tell you what you will find in this poem. I can tell you what I\u2019ve seen: boats splitting water, an arm underneath an ashen shield, something stirring in the night. All of it is true. But what you will hear \u2014 what Beowulf<\/em> will show you, will lean to whisper in your ear \u2014 is something belonging only to you. Listen. You haven\u2019t heard this one before.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

Beowulf by Meghan Purvis is available online for \u00a39.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Beowulf<\/em> is a Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation, and selections from it won the Times Stephen Spender Prize for Translation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meghan Purvis introduces her bold new translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, out now from Penned in the Margins. I was in my third year of university when the professor of my History of the English Language class stood up at the front of the lecture hall and recited the opening of English\u2019s first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[135,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3507"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3507"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16177,"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3507\/revisions\/16177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}