 |
|
By Dan Gunderson
Minnesota Public Radio
October 11, 2002
Monsters, dragons, blood and gore. And a superhero who dies trying to save the world. No, it's not the latest offering at your neighborhood cinema. Beowulf is one of the oldest poems in the English language. It's considered an Anglo Saxon epic. It was written in Old English. You may have struggled through a translation in high school or college. Perhaps the poem sits on your bookshelf with other literary classics. Two Fargo poets say Beowulf deserves better. So they've collaborated on a new translation.
| |
|
|
|
||
|
||
Like many of us, Tim Murphy read Beowulf in high school.
It's the story of a warrior who slays a monster besieging Denmark. The young warrior becomes a king who meets his end in battle with a dragon.
It's a great story, but Murphy says reading the stilted English translation made for a pretty forgettable experience.
He remembers the night he fell in love with Beowulf. He was a 19 year old student at Yale listening to professor emeritus John Pope tell the tale in it's original old english.
"And we boys were seated on a rug drinking mead from enameled drinking horns," he recalls. "And this octagenarian sat in a wooden chair and started banging on the arms of it and started reciting Beowulf. And the music just totally blew me away and I was convinced there had to be a way to smuggle some portion of that into modern English."
In the ensuing 30 odd years, Tim Murphy returned to Fargo and a career in agriculture and land development. He also made something of a name for himself as a poet.
But he never lost his love of Beowulf. About five years ago he started translating the epic poem. The project caught the interest of his longtime partner, editor and fellow poet Allan Sullivan.
| |
|
|
|
||
|
||
"It started out as Beowulfs greatest hits," Sullivan says. "There were certain passages Tim encountered when he was young and he was keen to try those out. And then I was drawn in to the project by looking over his shoulder as several of these pieces we tackled. And finally I just decided, we're going to do the whole thing. "
Alan Sullivan spent a year immersed in Beowulf. He wanted to avoid the stilted language of many translations. But he also needed to stay true to the original poem.
Tim Murphy says the Germanic syntax sings in the original version. Literal translation is not kind to the flowing verse.
Here's a word for word translation of a portion of the dirge," Murphy begins to read:
"Constructed there weather people,
"Barrow on headland that was high and broad,
"To wayfarers far visible.
"And timbered in ten days Battle Balds monument,
"Fire leavings wall built around,
"So it worthily most clever men find might."
Murphy is a practiced reader, but it's hard to understand.
"The question becomes, how much do you modify the syntax, to make it comprehensible?" Sullivan says. "For a poet the answer is easy. You want the readers to be reading it as a poem that's comprehensible to them in their language now. The scholars get a little unhappy about that because preservation of the attributes of the original are a higher priority to them."
Sullivan and Murphy say they're not trying to please scholars, they want to make Beowulf a more enjoyable experience for the average literary consumer. Murphy is convinced they've set the standard.
"I expect this book will be read by literally millions of kids throughout the English-speaking world over the next hundred years. Because I see no need for another translation until the language changes to the point where our translation seems as old and stuffy as the 19th century ones. What most distinguishes our translation from others is that it rocks."
"Occasionally it rolls too," Sullivan adds.
Beowulf in its earliest incarnation was oral literature. It was meant for the ear, not the eye.
Tim Murphy has committed much of the poem to memory. It takes about six hours to recite the 3,182 lines.
Murphy says the epic should hold special meaning in Minnesota. The hero is, after all, Scandinavian. Much of the story takes place in Scandinavia.
Allan Sullivan says Beowulf is the product of a warlike culture.
He says the glorification of battle and blood makes many a little uncomfortable claiming that part of their cultural heritage.
He says the epic poem is much more than a dusty tome.
" I think it relates to a lot of things. I hate to tie it in to this, but world events are what they are. I think in this period we're trying to reassess what the meaning of force is, and how force can be moral in some contexts. And Beowulf helps us do that. "
The Murphy Sullivan translation of Beowulf is part of the new Longman Anthology of British Literature.
A stand alone version will be published in the spring.
More from MPR
More Information
© 2024 | Home : Terms of Use : Your Privacy RightsRadio Listening : News & Features : Events Calendar : Your Voice : About Us