[William Cloud Hicklin]

The translation is enjoyable but perhaps a bit "dry;" this is clearly Tolkien the scholar at work, with accuracy of rendering taking precedence over "poetry." But that isn't to say it doesn't have its own compelling, sharp-angled impact. In particular, unlike Heaney's modern, almost conversational rendering (verse-form notwithstanding), Tolkien by design or as a byproduct of literalism has "forcibly removed the reader from his comfort zone," as one reviewer said of another JRRT work, and made us view this world from an A-S perspective. I'm reminded a bit of T's letter to Hugh Brogan on the semi-archaic language in "The King of the Golden Hall" and his assertion that people who talk like moderns also think like moderns; to express Theoden's way of thinking he has to speak as he does.

But the real prize here may not be the translation itself, but the voluminous excerpts from T's lextures inclded as the "commentary"- proof not only of Tolkien's nimble brain and vast learning, but a reminder that he was the world's leading Beowulf expert in his day. A master at the height of his powers.