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Found out about a translation of Beowulf that came out in 2020 that aims to render it as contemporary spoken English while still maintaining the rhythm and character of the original text and I'm in love
It's funny, but not like it's making fun of the poem, she just injected some humour into it that probably was there in the original in the first place
Genuinely I think this is an amazing translation, reading it you still get the sense of rhythm that the original has and she kept a lot of the kennings that typify Old English epics, this isn't just "Beowulf for zooners," this is a genuinely good example of translation
@coriander yeah i love the headley translation tbh
@Lady definitely an important endorsement for me to hear this
@coriander genuinely when the prose is something you grok intuitively it's way easier to pick up on language choices which otherwise might go over your head
and like, it's a translation of beowulf, of course all of those are intentional
@Lady Yeah I totally agree, that's why I'm so stoked about this translation, I love the idea of bringing it back to a raucous spoken word sort of affair
@coriander it's less accurate in a literal sense but if you want to pick up on all the ways the author of beowulf is Doing Something With Words there's no way you're going to get that from a literal translation, especially not one in like, victorian prose; you're not going to pick up on the difference between victorian phrasing A and victorian phrasing B
and like beowulf was written as entertainment for bards to yell at people yk? it's supposed to be fun