The voice of doom!

The good news is that we're (temporarily) safe in the Dread Realm. The bad news is that Azlo, abandoned by his friends to die at the hands of 50 war wizards, has reawakened in a place not particularly friendly to him...

( September 15, 2010 )

( September 22, 2010 )

And that's it for this week! Next week: the aftermath of Battle Squares and the resumption of the main plotline. At least, we hope so! See you then!

Books of 2010: 40. Beowulf, translated by Howell D. Chickering Jr.

I picked up Beowulf again in anticipation of an SCA event in March, whose main event will be a complete recitation of the saga. Bards (or should I say, skalds) will each take sections of a few hundred lines, and the recitation is expected to be a full-day event once you take into account things like meal breaks and intermissions.

The last time I read Beowulf was in my first year of undergrad (2001), and it was the translation by Michael Alexander. I'd forgotten a lot since then, and it was nice to reread an old favourite, especially given that I've been performing riffs on Beowulf for years (like this or this), and it's always good to be reminded of the original.

That said, I didn't particularly enjoy Chickering's translation. While it might be more faithful to the original text (not reading Old English, I can't say), I found it very jerky and fragmented, which might work well in Old English but is odd in modern English. It's not just the sentences that are often fragmented into half-line clauses, but the text itself sometimes jumps into backstory or tangents, and you don't realize it for several lines. It's always a bit of a jolt to start seeing new names, have no idea who they are, and realize that you jumped into a side-story two dozen lines previously and just didn't notice.

I've chosen my section for the Beowulf event (lines 499-661, the swimming contest -- some lovely snarky bits and boasting in there that'll be a lot of fun). Now I've got to start checking out different translations and see which one I want to use as my source. Anyone have any favourites?