Beowulf
Composed toward the end of the first millennium, Beowulf is the elegiac narrative of the adventures of Beowulf, a Scandinavian hero who saves the Danes from the seemingly invincible monster Grendel and, later, from Grendel's mother. He then returns to his own country and dies in old age in a vivid fight against a dragon. The poem is about encountering the monstrous, defeating it, and then having to live on in the exhausted aftermath. In the contours of this story, at once remote and uncannily familiar at the beginning of the twenty-first century, Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney finds a resonance that summons power to the poetry from deep beneath its surface. Drawn to what he has called the "four-squareness of the utterance" in Beowulf and its immense emotional credibility, Heaney gives these epic qualities new and convincing reality for the contemporary reader.
What you might want to know about Beowulf
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Seamus Heaney's modern English translation of the Old English epic. The Geatish warrior Beowulf comes to a Danish king's mead hall to kill the monster Grendel, and decades later faces a final dragon.
Seamus Heaney's 1999 verse translation is widely considered one of the most influential modern Beowulf translations and won the Whitbread Book of the Year. Other notable translations include those by J.R.R. Tolkien and Maria Dahvana Headley. Each takes a different approach.
The original Old English text is in the public domain, but modern English translations remain under their translators' copyrights. Heaney's translation is copyrighted; older 19th-century translations are free.
Beowulf was written by Seamus Heaney, published in 2000 by W. W. Norton.
Beowulf is 256 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Beowulf takes most readers 4 to 6 hours to finish.
Beowulf is a standalone novel by Seamus Heaney, not part of a series.
Beowulf is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
