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  • The Complete Old English Poems by Craig Williamson
  • Daniel Anlezark
The Complete Old English Poems. Translated by Craig Williamson, with an Introduction by Tom Shippey. The Middle Ages Series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017. Pp. lviii + 1189; 6 illustrations. $59.95.

I always find reading the translations from Old English texts made by other scholars interesting, and especially so the more difficult and often ambiguous language of poetry. At times I read with a critical eye, but more often I read in search of more general literary insight; the complex ways in which we share our encounter with these ancient texts and give them modern meanings is greatly assisted by a pooling of understandings. None of us is a native speaker of Old English, none an Anglo-Saxon poet, and none of us can even come close to sharing in an early medieval English culture and its assumptions. It is, of course, possible to define right or wrong when translating Old English, especially for our students as we lead them into their own direct meetings with this literature. But none of us as twenty-first century professionals of Old English can have a monopoly on getting what it was that these ancient poets were saying. In a manner analogous to our critical discussions of the ways in which early English literature generates meaning, the sharing of translations provides a forum, albeit more creative, for reflecting on the expression and meanings of Old English poems, even as we make the linguistic break from their original mode of expression. For this reason, writing a review [End Page 259] of this vast collection of poetic translations is inherently fraught—all Modern English translations necessarily involve a departure from the original meaning of the Old English text. Always treating these in terms of correct or incorrect would be meaningless, however, when most of the time such judgments would be better expressed in terms of "If had done this . . . ." In the case of Craig Williamson's great endeavor—the translation of all known Old English poetry into Modern English verse—I think it is safe to say that few, if any of us, ever will do this, and even if we did, the result is unlikely to make it to press.

There are many grounds for quibbling with the detail of the translations. The very first lines in the collection open Genesis A: Us is riht micel . . . herigen. The translation, surprisingly, renders this impersonally: "It is right to praise the Lord of heaven" (p. 37). Apart from the missed opportunity at the outset to invite the reader into the "us" of the poem, the poet's (perhaps deliberate) recollection of the opening of Caedmon's HymnNu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard—is lost, despite the fact that Williamson's translation of the Hymn itself brings out the invitation to the reader implicit in the poem's grammar: "Now let us praise the Creator" (p. 1050). Williamson artfully includes as much alliteration in his verse lines as possible, in an effort to convey to the reader something of the form of Old English verse. He makes no claim that this presents an accurate rendering of the formula or meter of the original poetry, and across such a vast undertaking it is natural that its formulaic building blocks, in particular, are obscured or lost. One example is in the translation of the unusual formula X is min nama, familiar to all students of Old English from Beowulf line 343, Beowulf is min nama, which is translated faithfully as "Beowulf is my name" (p. 616, l. 344). However, where the related heroic poem in the Finnsburh fragment has the hero declare Sigeferþ is min nama (l. 24), this becomes "Sigeferth . . . My name is known" (p. 911, ll. 32–33).

This comprehensive volume appears at a moment when the Dumbarton Oaks series is changing the way in which readers with the language (in varying degrees) encounter Old English poetry and prose, with affordable and accessible volumes presenting editions of Old English texts with facing-page prose translations. Williamson locates his work in a different space, hoping that "new readers of these...

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