Book Review - Not the last gasp
When Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf narrowly won England’s Whitbread Prize last year, edging out Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by one vote, English critics treated it as one of those apocalyptic moments foretelling the doom of high culture. The United States never sees controversies over that sort of thing any more, high culture presumably having died here decades ago.
Recently published in this country, Heaney’s Beowulf occupies an interesting demographic niche, with an Irish Nobel Laureate translating an 8th century Anglo-Saxon epic poem extolling the exploits of a Scandinavian hero. In his introduction, Heaney explains his goal to render Beowulf’s Old English in an accessible, spare vernacular. He uses as his model the speech of his relatives, whom he calls “big voiced Scullions,” who could make statements like, “We cut the corn to-day,” as Heaney puts it, “as if they were announcing verdicts rather than making small talk.”
Heaney sets the tone with the very first syllable, eschewing a high-flown “Hark!” or “Lo!” for a no-nonsense “So.” The poet can employ rustic words like “gumption” and instill a nearly biblical weight to lines like, “The shepherd of people was sheared of life.” But he also takes pleasure in archaic, alliterative terms, as in the sentence, “He is hasped and hooped and hirpling with pain, limping and looped in it.”
Beowulf is a cornerstone of Western Lit without exactly being one of its brightest gems, lacking the universal recognition of the Homeric epics. Beowulf lacks the complexities of Homer’s Achilles or Odysseus, and the telling and retelling of his mighty deeds can sound like the missives from Beowulf’s publicist. Still, it’s hard to resist being caught up in Beowulf’s mano-a-mano match with the savage ogre Grendel (“captain of evil”) and later, his underwater battle with Grendel’s mother.
But Heaney’s most memorable and evocative passages come in the book’s final section, when the aged Beowulf gives his life to stop the elemental menace of a fire-breathing dragon. Heaney’s translation of Beowulf (no doubt assisted by some eye-catching cover art) has made a surprise appearance on the New York Times bestseller list, suggesting that high culture in America has yet to make its last gasp.