Gregory Rabassa

Beowulf in Modern English Verse

Arts & Literature

“Sung-Il Lee has wisely and instinctively combined the best of the two elements―poetic recreation and accurate lexical rendition―and given us what may be the best modern version of Beowulf so far, and one which will endure as long as what we call Modern English resists infection of inflection. This is how the chain of bards who put it together might have chanted the poem, had they spoken the way we do now. This is a masterful version and as close to an ideal translation as we can get.”