Christina G

I enjoy Beowulf. I've read many translations over the years. This one is by far the worst one I have ever read. I really wanted to like it and I was excited when I came across it at a bookstore, but the execution was poor. First of all, if this is supposed to be a feminist take, I'm going to need some binoculars to find it. I thought perhaps the author would turn Grendel's mother into a figure we could sympathize with. That didn't happen. I wasn't stirred to pity. There was no "humanizing" backstory. Secondly, the jarring modern slang takes me out of the historical setting. It's hard to imagine the people of the poem saying "Bro." Terms like "best boy" or "daddy" are also jarring. Thirdly, Beowulf is a poem. There is supposed to be a rhyming structure, alliteration. There's very little of that here. The author makes it look like a poem, but it's really not. I'd give it zero stars if I could.