Date | Title | Translator | Location | Publisher | Type | Notes |
1837 | Beowulf | Kemble, John Mitchell | London | William Pickering | Prose | First complete translation into modern English; archaizing, and translating word-for-word. The 1st ed. in 1833 had no translation. |
1849 | Beowulf, an epic poem translated from the Anglo-Saxon into English verse | Wackerbarth, A. Diedrich | London | William Pickering | Verse | Walter Scott-like romance verse using rhyme and modern metre (iambic tetrameters), no attempt to imitate alliterative verse |
1855 | Anglo-Saxon Poems of Beowulf | Thorpe, Benjamin | Oxford | James Wright | Verse, prosaic | Parallel text, with "literal" translation "reading like prose ... chopped up into short lines" as if verse |
1876 | Beowulf: a Heroic Poem of the Eighth Century, with a translation | Arnold, Thomas, the Younger | London | Longmans, Green | Prose | An archaizing version, translating word-for-word.[7] |
1881 | Beowulf: an old English poem, translated into modern rhymes | Lumsden, Henry William | London | Kegan Paul | Verse | |
1882 | Beowulf: an Anglo-Saxon poem, & the Fight at Finnsburg | Garnett, James Mercer, the younger | Boston | Ginn, Heath, & Co. | Verse | "With facsimile of the unique manuscript in the British Museum".[8] |
1888 | I. Beówulf: an Anglo-Saxon poem. II. The Fight at Finnsburh: a fragment | Harrison, James Albert; Moritz Heyne; Robert Sharp | Boston | X. Ginn & Co. | Prose | Not exactly a translation. Annotated text and long glossary |
1892 | The Deeds of Beowulf | Earle, John | Oxford | Clarendon Press | Prose | An archaizing version. |
1894 | Beowulf | Wyatt, Alfred John | Cambridge | Cambridge University Press | Prose | Not exactly a translation. Annotated text and long glossary |
1895 | The tale of Beowulf sometime King of the folk of the Weder Geats | Morris, William; Alfred John Wyatt | London | Longman | Verse | "Genuinely foreignizing ... medievalizes" in a distinctive style, with "breaking rhythms and irregular syntax ... an insistently archaizing diction and a striking literalism to produce a defamiliarizing effect". |
1897 | Beowulf: an Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem | Hall, John Lesslie | Lexington | D. C. Heath | Verse | [11] |
1901 | Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg | Hall, J. R. Clark | Cambridge | Cambridge University Press | Prose | A literal approach, somewhat archaic; smoother and more uniform than Kemble. "One of the most enduringly popular of all translations of the poem".[13] |
1910 | Beowulf | Gummere, Francis B. | New York | The Collier Press | Verse | The Harvard Classics, Charles W. Eliot, (Ed.) |
1910 | Beowulf | Sedgefield, Walter John | Manchester | University of Manchester | Prose | Not exactly a translation. Annotated text and long glossary |
1913 | The Story of Beowulf | Kirtlan, Ernest John Brigham | London | C. H. Kelly | Prose | Decorated and designed by Frederick Lawrence. |
1914 | Beowulf. A Metrical Translation into Modern English | Hall, J. R. Clark | Cambridge | Cambridge University Press | Verse | |
1921 |
Widsith; Beowulf; Finnsburgh; Waldere; Dior [sic], done into Common English after the Old Manner |
Charles Scott Moncrieff[14] |
London |
Chapman and Hall |
Verse |
With an introduction from Lord Northcliffe. Moncrieff had studied Old English at the University of Edinburgh in 1913.[14] |
1922 | Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg | Klaeber, Frederick | Boston | D. C. Heath and Company | Prose | Classic, continuously in print through 4 editions. Not exactly a translation. Annotated text and long glossary |
1923 | The Story of Beowulf and Grendel. Retold in modern English prose | Spencer, Richard Augustus | London, Edinburgh | W. & R. Chambers | Prose | |
1923 | The Song of Beowulf rendered into English prose | Gordon, R. K. | London | J.M. Dent & Sons | Prose | |
1925 | Beowulf. Translated into modern English rhyming verse | Strong, Archibald | London | Constable | Verse | |
1926 | Beowulf. Translated into English verse | Crawford, D. H. | London | Chatto & Windus | Verse | |
1933 | The Story of Beowulf. Retold from the ancient epic | Riggs, Strafford | New York | D. Appleton-Century | | Decorated by Henry Clarence Pitz. |
1940 | Beowulf. the oldest English epic. Translated into alliterative verse with a critical introduction | Kennedy, Charles W. | New York | Oxford University Press | Verse, alliterative | OCLC 185407779. |
1945 | Beowulf. In modern verse with an essay and pictures | Bone, Gavin David | Oxford | Basil Blackwell | Verse | |
1949 | Beowulf in Modern English. A translation in blank verse | Waterhouse, Mary Elizabeth | Cambridge | Bowes & Bowes | Verse, blank | |
1952 | Beowulf: A Verse Translation into Modern English | Morgan, Edwin | Berkeley | University of California Press | Verse | Based on Klaeber's text; "of special significance in its own right but also as the beginning of translation of Beowulf into a genuinely modern poetic idiom, leading the way for many later followers down to and beyond Seamus Heaney". |
1953 | Beowulf, with the Finnsburg fragment | Wrenn, C. L. | London | George G. Harrap & Co. | | Wrenn was one of the Inklings. |
1953 | Beowulf and Judith | Dobbie, Elliott van Kirk | New York | Columbia University Press | | |
1954 | Beowulf the Warrior | Serraillier, Ian | Oxford | Oxford University Press | | Illustrated by John Severin. |
1957 | Beowulf | Wright, David | Harmondsworth | Penguin Classics | Prose | Reprinted by Panther Books, 1970 |
1961 | Beowulf | Goodrich, Norma Lorre | New York | Mentor | Prose | Excerpts of the main action sequences and plotline. |
1963 | Beowulf | Raffel, Burton | New York | Signet Classics | Verse | Raffel writes in his essay "On Translating Beowulf" that the poet-translator "needs to master the original in order to leave it". |
1966 | Beowulf | Donaldson, Ethelbert Talbot | London | Longman | Prose | Widely read in The Norton Anthology of English Literature; accurate, "foreignizing" prose, using asyndetic coordination, "somewhat ponderous but ... dignified tone ... viewed by teachers as dull". |
1968 | Beowulf | Crossley-Holland, Kevin | London | Macmillan | | OCLC 1200055128 |
1968 | Beowulf and its Analogues | Garmonsway, George N. | London | J.M. Dent & Sons | Prose | Hugh Magennis calls this "much-used"; Michael J. Alexander says it has "dignity and rhythmical shape". |
1973 | Beowulf: A Verse Translation | Alexander, Michael J. | Harmondsworth | Penguin Classics | Verse | Closely "shadows" the original |
1977 |
Beowulf: A Dual-Language Edition |
Howell D. Chickering |
New York |
Anchor Books |
Verse |
|
1983 | Beowulf: a Verse Translation with Treasures of the Ancient North | Osborn, Marijane | Berkeley | University of California Press | Verse | [20] |
1985 | A Readable Beowulf | Greenfield, Stanley B. | Carbondale | Southern Illinois University Press | | "Simultaneously a poem and, by virtue of the nature of translation, an act of criticism".(Greenfield, p. ix) |
1991 | Beowulf: A Verse Translation | Rebsamen, Frederick | New York | HarperCollins | Verse | imitates original's poetic form as closely as possible, with alliterative half-lines; seven prose sections interrupt the translation, instead of using footnotes[22] |
1991 | Beowulf: Text and Translation | Porter, John | Hockwold-cum-Wilton | Anglo-Saxon Books | Verse | Parallel text; "the most literal"[23] |
1999 | Beowulf: A Translation in Progress | Romano, Tim | Swarthmore, Pennsylvania | | Verse | The translation seeks to bring over into modern English the carved syntax of the original poetry without things becoming too "wooden". url=https://timromano.org/beowulf/beowulf_trans.htm |
1999 | Beowulf: A New Verse Translation | Heaney, Seamus | London | Faber | Verse | |
2000 | Beowulf | Liuzza, Roy M. | Peterborough, Ontario | Broadview Press | | Parallel text. 2nd edition 2013 |
2012 | Beowulf: A Translation | Meyer, Thomas | Santa Barbara, California | Punctum Books | | |
2013 | Grinnell Beowulf: A Translation with Notes | Arner, Timothy D.; Eva Dawson; Emily Johnson; Jeanette Miller; Logan Shearer; Aniela Wendt; Kate Whitman | Grinnell, Iowa | Grinnell College Press | Verse | Illustrated translation and teaching edition.[24][25] |
2013 | Beowulf | Purvis, Meghan | London | Penned in the Margins | Verse | A collection of connected poems, or read as one long poem. "The Collar" won The Times Stephen Spender Prize for poetry in translation, 2011[26] and the collection was Poetry Book Society recommended translation, Summer 2013.[27] |
2014 [1926] | Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary | Tolkien, J. R. R. | London | HarperCollins | Prose | Translated 1920–1926, edited by Christopher Tolkien, published posthumously with "Sellic Spell", a version reconstructed as an Anglo-Saxon folktale, i.e. without the heroic elements |
2017 | Beowulf | Mitchell, Stephen | New Haven, Connecticut | Yale University Press[28] | | |
2020 |
Beowulf: A New Translation |
Headley, Maria Dahvana |
London |
Macmillan |
Verse |
It translates the opening Hwæt as "Bro!"[29] Won the 2021 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award[30] and the 2021 Hugo Award for Best Related Work.[31] |
2021 | 'Beowulf' By All: Community Translation and Workbook | Abbott, Jean; Treharne, Elaine, and Fafinski, Mateusz (Eds.) | Leeds | Arc Humanities Press | | Translated by over 200 contributors. An earlier version appeared in 2018, as Beowulf by All, Version 1.0 from Stanford TexT (of Stanford University Press). |
2022 |
After Beowulf |
Nicole Markotić |
Toronto, Canada |
Coach House Books |
Verse |
|