The Complete Old English Poems (The Middle Ages Series) by Tom Shippey (PDF)

Description

From the riddling song of a bawdy onion that moves between kitchen and bedroom to the thrilling account of Beowulf’s battle with a treasure-hoarding dragon, from the heart-rending lament of a lone castaway to the embodied speech of the cross upon which Christ was crucified, from the anxiety of Eve, who carries “a sumptuous secret in her hands / And a tempting truth hidden in her heart,” to the trust of Noah who builds “a sea-floater, a wave-walking / Ocean-home with rooms for all creatures,” the world of the Anglo-Saxon poets is a place of harshness, beauty, and wonder.Now for the first time, the entire Old English poetic corpus—including poems and fragments discovered only within the past fifty years—is rendered into modern strong-stress, alliterative verse in a masterful translation by Craig Williamson.Accompanied by an introduction by noted medievalist Tom Shippey on the literary scope and vision of these timeless poems and Williamson’s own introductions to the individual works and his essay on translating Old English poetry, the texts transport us back to the medieval scriptorium or ancient mead-hall, to share a herdsman’s recounting of the story of the world’s creation or a people’s sorrow at the death of a beloved king, to be present at the clash of battle or to puzzle over the sacred and profane answers to riddles posed over a thousand years ago. This is poetry as stunning in its vitality as it is true to its sources. Were Williamson’s idiom not so modern, we might think that the Anglo-Saxon poets had taken up the lyre again and begun to sing once more.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐This is a lovely collection and has many poems I had never even heard of before. I have no expertise, but I am enjoying the translations. The printing is crisp and clear and the pages are very well bound. However, I must add that the outer binding is weak. The book is large and the bottom of the spine in already folding after only three or four reading sessions. The book deserves a stronger shell. — JRG

⭐I recommend this book as an advance over S A J Bradley’s prose translations, but I also recommend Anglo Saxon Poetry.So far, I’ve been very pleased with Williamson’s book. I’m generally pleased the translations I’ve used and even more pleased with the introductory essays, which give excellent background. However, the translations are spotty. They are pleasant and capture the general thrust of the originals, which is what the author intended. But he seems baffled by “metod” & just skipped the idea it represents in the passages I used so far where “metod” is in the original. (I apologize for the awkward quality of that sentence!) I appreciate that he understands the difference between the way the original audience thought about poetry and the subject matters and the way we think about those things. This book is good for people who are not inclined to dig into the Old English editions, but it is also helpful for those looking for help with translation from Old English. Williamson has good ideas how to do this, & he understands Old English reasonably well.

⭐This is a nice supplement to my Dobbie and Krapp set. Very readable translations (including a pretty good Beowulf) in a well-made, attractive book. There might be better translations of key poems out there, but this is a good collection of the entire corpus. The one downside of having the whole corpus translated by one person is that you lose some of the stylistic differences between poems, but this is a great book, even for a (long) cover-to-cover read. To me, it’s worth even more than its cover price.

⭐Beautiful book. well done by the translator. Nice to have all this in one volume. Amazing translations. Cant really say enough about it. 5 stars all the way. If you love old English poetry, but this book.

⭐This was the perfect gift for an English teacher who loves poetry! She was wowed. A+ condition, arrived on time.

⭐Got this on a recommendation from a website. I was disappointed that it only had modern English translations, it didn’t include the original Old English, but then it would have to be two volumes. I think the publisher chickened out by not going all the way.

⭐This is a book of poetry there is no plot!

⭐Prompt delivery, book as described.

⭐A wonderful book in every respect.

⭐Although I don’t read Old English myself, I do have other copies of some of these poems by other translators for comparison. I have examined Williamson’s translation of The Old English Rune Poem and his notes in some detail. I have almost every other translation in English of the poem, including Maureen Halsall’s ‘Critical Edition,’ and Stephen Flowers’ ‘The Rune Poems and Glossary.’ Craig Williamson, like John Niles, (whom he cites), tries to go beyond a mere word-for-word translation, and really get into the head of the poet (although his slant on that is quite different from that of Niles’). The result is a truly heroic compendium of careful research, original thinking and poetic talent, beautifully packaged in glossy high-quality print and paper. Bravo! This book, the first effort ever to put all of the poems in one volume together with sufficient notes and detailed bibliography, is an indispensable addition to any Anglo Saxon library.

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