For Tuesday: Maria Dahvana Headley, "Introduction" to Beowulf (in the Headley translation)

NOTE: Make sure you have the right translation of Beowulf, or else you won't have Headley's fascinating Introduction to her translation of the poem (let me know if you can't obtain it--I might be able to help!). 

ALSO: I forgot to mention in class, though I send everyone an e-mail about this. On Monday, September 2nd, the English department in conjunction with our alumni, Cody Baggerly, hosts an Open-Mic Poetry/Prose reading at Kind Origin here in Ada at 6:00-8:00. Anyone is welcome to attend, and feel free to bring short prose and poems to share (if you like) with the gathering. Kind Origin is run by an ECU alum who also works at the university. Even though it's a dispensary, it has a family-friendly environment (many kids attend) and the reading takes place in what feels like someone's living room--it's very cozy and non-threatening. Kind Origin is on Mississippi just before Home Depot on the West side of the road. 

Answer TWO of the following for next week:

Q1: Headley argues that Beowulf "[though] a poem about Then, it's also (and always has been) a poem about Now, and how we got here" (x). How does she try to persuade us of the cultural relevance of such an old and often mystifying poem? Related to this, how does she use the present to read the past/text? 

Q2: Arguing with Tolkien's own views of the poem (Tolkien made a very difficult-to-read prose translation of the poem in the 50's), Headley claims that "Beowulf is a living text in a dead language...when [language] dies, it leaves bones" (xvi, xx). What do you think this means by this, and would Culler agree with her? Are all old poems "living" in the same way?

Q3: In class on Thursday, we looked at two different translations of Wulf and Eadwacer, discussing how a different slant on a specific line can change the entire plot and mood of a poem. According to Headley, what is one of the biggest controveries regarding translating Beowulf, and how might the bias of the present cloud our reading of the past?

Q4: To Headley, Beowulf is still "worth it" as an exciting work of literature. It repays the time and attention of reading it over and over again. Though she came to the work under a false assumption that Grendel's mother was the hero of the work, what did she find that made the poem so rich and rewarding for her? How does she try to capture this in her translation of the poem (according to her)?