Stanley B. Greenfield, one of the world s foremost Anglo-Saxon scholars, writes of why, after more than thirty years of study, he undertook the Herculean task of rendering "Beowulf "into contemporary verse: I wanted my translation to be not only faithful to the original but, as the late John Lennon would have put it, A Poem in Its Own Write. I wanted it to flow, to be easy to read, with the narrative movement of a modern prose story; yet to suggest the rhythmic cadences of the Old English poem. I wanted it both modern and Old English in its reflexes and sensibilities, delighting both the...

Anglo-Saxon prose and poetry is, without question, the major literary achievement of the early Middle Ages (c. 700-1100). In no other vernacular language does such a vast store of verbal treasures exist for so extended a period of time. For twenty years the definitive guide to that literature has been Stanley B. Greenfield's 1965 Critical History of Old English Literature. Now this classic has been extensively revised and updated to make it more valuable than ever to both the student and scholar.