Beowulf: A New Verse Translation

Dating from the age of Bede the Venerable, Beowulf is the quintessential Anglo-Saxon poem, the “heroic-elegaic” of man versus monsters. The hero, Beowulf, defends the Danes against the rampaging Grendel and his monstrous mother, and returns home, where he lives long and prosperously. At life’s end, however, he must confront the final foe, death, in battle with a dragon, deadly and ancient.