Old English Poetry

R. M. Liuzza's Broadview edition of Beowulf. was published at almost exactly the same time as Seamus Heaney's; in reviewing the two together in July 2000 for The New York Review of Books. , Frank Kermode concluded that both translations were superior to their predecessors, and that it was impossible to choose between the two: "the less celebrated translator can be matched with the famous one," he wrote, and "Liuzza's book is in some respects more useful than Heaney's. " Ever since, the Liuzza Beowulf. has remained among the top sellers on the Broadview list. With this volume readers will now be able to enjoy a much broader selection of Old English poetry in translations by Liuzza. As the collection demonstrates, the range and diversity of the works that have survived is extraordinary-from heartbreaking sorrow to wide-eyed wonder, from the wisdom of old age to the hot blood of battle, and to the deepest and most poignant loneliness. There is breathless storytelling and ponderous cataloguing; there is fervent religious devotion and playful teasing. The poems translated here are meant to provide a sense of some of this range and diversity; in doing so they also offer significant portions of three of the important manuscripts of Old English poetry-the Vercelli Book, the Junius Manuscript, and the Exeter Book.