Beowulf2020

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

Headley provides a radical new verse translation of the epic poem. She 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. The familiar elements of the epic poem are seen with a novelist's eye toward gender, genre, and history, unearthing significant shifts in the epic poem that have been lost over centuries of translation. -- adapted from back cover

"Nearly twenty years after Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf--and fifty years after the translation that continues to torment high-school...