Newbie here, asking if pic related is the same as the original, or if Tolkien put a spin on it

Newbie here, asking if pic related is the same as the original, or if Tolkien put a spin on it

Attached: 40E413E8-EAEB-4A19-A178-FA31A253AA9A.jpg (4032x3024, 1.36M)

Why is pic sideways? i couldnt tell ya. also sorry for shitty camera...

Poems are untranslatable but everyone pretends otherwise. Beowulf is a poem. Hope that helps.

>Is a translation the same as the original?

Attached: (you).jpg (210x240, 8K)

A spin on it? If only he was that restrained. The absolute pipe-addled madman put it in -English-.

>is the same as the original
hwaet

>tfw can't into alliterative verse
i just can't feel the rhythm anons.
help me out.

H
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A
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Y

You should just read the original desu famalam

Surprised no one has given OP a proper answer yet. Veeky Forums should be better than this.

OP, Tolkien's Beowulf is a prose translation of Beowulf which is originally an epic poem. Tolkien was a professor of Anglo-Saxon and it seems to have been done as an exercise in linguistics, to help Tolkien's understanding of the text. That's the "spin", it's a poem rendered into prose by Tolkien.

For something closer to the original you want a verse translation. I don't know which is the best one. Maybe Seamus Heaney's? Can other anons comment? It goes without saying that you can never recreate the original in modern English.

I would get a Beowulf which has the original Old English text - just read it out to yourself, you won't understand many of the words but if you're a native English speaker you'll vaguely feel what is being described through the tone and the sound of the Old English.