Beowulf--A New Translation

A new, feminist translation of Beowulf by the author of the much-buzzed-about novel The Mere Wife

Nearly twenty years after Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulfand fifty years after the translation that continues to torment high-school students around the worldthere is a radical new verse translation of the epic poem by Maria Dahvana Headley, which brings to light elements that have never before been translated into English, recontextualizing the binary narrative of monsters and heroes into a tale in which the two categories often entwine, justice is rarely served, and dragons live among us.

A man seeks to prove himself as a hero. A monster seeks silence in his territory. A warrior seeks to avenge her murdered son. A dragon ends it all. The familiar elements of the epic poem are seen with a novelist's eye toward gender, genre, and historyBeowulf has always been a tale of entitlement and encroachment,...