Hearing voices: Introduction to Old English texts in translation

2.4 Old English literature in translation

Is the process of making Old English texts accessible to twenty-first-century readers one of modernisation or translation? To what extent should, and could, editors of Old English texts translate each word as literally as possible? To what extent should the editorial priority be to reproduce the forms of Old English texts?

Translation is never an easy task, the more so when even the word order and poetic forms of the source text are so very different from those of the language into which it is to be translated, and perhaps even more so when the text is one of the iconic bedrocks of English literature. In his account of producing a version of Beowulf in Modern English, the poet Seamus Heaney writes that often ‘the whole attempt to turn it into Modern English seemed to me like trying to bring down a megalith with a toy hammer. What had been so attractive in the first place, the hand-built, rock-sure feel of the thing, began to defeat me’. Luckily for us, Heaney overcame this feeling of being defeated, and the obstacles to translation/modernisation of this epic poem.

Individual activity: Translation

Make some notes about the considerations that editors and translators must take into account and the decisions they must make when bringing Old English texts to twenty-first-century readers. Then read this article discussing Seamus Heaney’s translation.

We shall be exploring Beowulf in detail later in the course, but for now listen to the opening of the poem in Old English, and compare it to Heaney’s Modern English version.

Individual activity: The sounds of Beowulf

You have already heard a reading of Beowulf in Old English.

Now listen to Heaney’s translation in Modern English, and compare your reaction when you first hear it.

Now that you have listened to a Modern English version of an Old English text, we are going to compare extracts from two versions of the Old English poem ‘The Wanderer’.

Group activity: Versions of translations

Visit both translations and make some notes about the way in which the versions differ. To what extent are the forms different? To what extent does the language vary?

Post your thoughts to the Hearing voices I forum, and respond to colleagues’ posts.

Some points you might like to think about in your comparison:

  • What is the different effect of ‘lone-dweller’ and ‘solitary one’?
  • What kind of word-form is ‘lone-dweller’ and why might that form be important in a translation?
  • Look at the word-order of
    though he unhappy
    across the seaways long time must
    stir with his hands

    How does that word order differ from the word order of Modern English? Why might that choice have been made?

  • Which is more effective: ‘Earth-stepper’ or ‘Wanderer’? Why?
  • What kinds of decision might have led to ‘breast’ being used in the second version rather than ‘breast-chamber’?
  • Do you find the word and phrases given in brackets in the second translation useful? What is their purpose?