Acknowledgments

I owe my first and greatest debt to my students in graduate seminars in Old English Language and Literature, and especially in the seminar on Beowulf and the Art of Translation. Their insightful questions have made them my teachers, and I have learned much from them. I am also grateful to my table companions in our Old English/Old Icelandic Reading Group, especially Laurel Lacroix, Hilary Mackie, Cynthia Green, and Michael Skupin. In my efforts to catch something of the poetic quality of Beowulf I have had the wise counsel of poets Robert Phillips and James Cleghorn, whose suggestions about tone and audience have been invaluable. Hovering over all has been the presence of my late friend and fellow scholar Jeanette Morgan.

I wish to thank George Stade, consulting editorial director for the Barnes & Noble Classics, for inviting me to undertake this project. I am especially grateful to Jeffrey Broesche, general editor for this series, for his constant attention and his unstinting encouragement.

Finally, it gives me great pleasure to acknowledge the tremendous debt I owe to my friend and colleague Carl Lindahl and, of course, to my wife and colleague Cynthia, who has made all possible.