Talk:Translating Beowulf/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Drmies (talk · contribs) Chiswick Chap, I will be doing this piecemeal, so please don't feel like you need to jump in right away; I'll ping you when I think I'm "done for the moment", if that makes sense to you. Thanks for writing this up: it's important. 16:16, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Many thanks for the kind words and for taking this on. Looking forward to it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:20, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Notes

• Lead sentence: you could consider adding to the list of adjectives, "compact, metrical, alliterative", or maybe add a sentence, to indicate that one of the problems is that we lost a number of readings because of the fire. That would allow you to link to Thorkelin, for instance. I know this is probably more relevant to Editing Beowulf, but you might could consider it.

  I've added a bit more description up there.

• For Beowulf's Afterlives Bibliographic Database, include Britt Mize and the publisher at Texas A&M.

  Done.

• For the alliteration, it's probably better to cite Old English words; "eager" is from French. And consonants alliterate with consonants, while a vowel alliterates with every other vowel--I don't have a Beowulf here at hand but "ece" and "or" from Caedmon's Hymn, line 4, is an example. Remove "the" in "the stressed words alliterate": not all stressed words alliterate because (if you're going to discuss the rules) the fourth stressed syllable in a line never alliterates with the other sounds.

  Edited, and added gloss that "old" and "eager" are meant as examples of Modern English words.

• "Verse or prose" -- well done. The table with the image of the MS and the three blocks of texts doesn't look great on my screen (the text flows outside the margins) but I don't know what could be done about it. Separating the image from the table, so there's only three columns, might work better. (I wish I were better at things so I could judge accessibility--like, how are these tables rendered by screen readers? Graham87, is this an article that works well enough for you?) And I note that the very last table does have outlined columns and rows, and a background, unlike the earlier ones. I don't know that one is better then the other (OK, I like the last one better), but I think consistency is good here.

  @Drmies: Thanks, the tables sound fine here. However I've removed the line breaks and changed the indentation style of this discussion to comply with the guideline about list gaps so I can read it as a list of ten items rather than ten lists of one item. Graham87 01:05, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

• Please provide a footnote for the 710-714 quote, something along the lines of "All citations from Beowulf are from..." It matters, of course--and I'll add as a side note that the poem having 3182 lines is also a matter of (some) contention.

  Added.

  Length: indeed. Added "some" for "3182 lines".

• In the two citations for Morris (the original and Morris's version), leave off final punctuation; it distracts (unlike in the Porter-Raffel set, where all three have the same marks: periods).

  OK, done.

• John Porter's 1991 version: for "in a parallel text" I suggest "in facing-page translation" or something to that effect.

  Done.

• Archaic or modern: you cite Magennis's use of the word "medievalism"--I'm wondering what link you could add in your prose that introduces that subject matter. Maybe Romantic nationalism? The section Romantic_nationalism#National_epics links to Beowulf.

  Done.

• Liuzza, "author of an admired Beowulf"--should be "translator", but "translator of an admired Beowulf" doesn't sound right. "...whose translation of Beowulf is much admired"?

  Done.

• Final observation: I think it's very good work. I do think it needs at least one more thing before I can pass it. One is, it's so much like an essay, and in that sense the article just sort of ends abruptly. I know, that's what happens in articles, but a conclusion of sorts, I'd love it.

  Many thanks. Mm, yes, though other than saying that there are many attempts and more opinions, I wouldn't know what the conclusion was. The Italians say "tradurre e tradire", "to translate is to betray" (better in Italian, no?), and I doubt anything better can be said, but I don't think policy-lovers would take kindly to a sprinkling of Italian proverb, let alone an editorial conclusion; it is a striking feature of Wikipedia that articles start strong and just fade into details, but there's no helping it. Though, mind you, the 'Assembling multiple effects' is a conclusion of sorts. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:39, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

• But a bigger thing is, and I don't know exactly where that should go (possibly in a conclusion?), we can't really have an article on "Translating Beowulf" without addressing what is still a bit of an elephant in the room--Heaneywulf. You've worked on that article--the Reception section is full of praise, but there was (and is) much, much criticism of it. If translations domesticate or foreignize, then Heaney was accused of a kind of appropriation, in terms that sometimes smacked seriously of anti-Irishness. I would not want to require that this GA exhaustively treats that controversy (ha, I think we can used that term), or delves into centuries of Anglo-Hibernian opposition, but Heaneywulf was huge, and a few paragraphs on it might well serve to support the idea (which you've brushed upon) that national epics are national (that is, considered to be so) and therefore invested with all kinds of value. Heaneywulf was the most anticipated translation of the poem ever, it was denounced even before it was published (based on pre-publications in the English press), it was...well it was all over the place, and I have no doubt that Liuzza's translation was prompted in part by Heaney's.

  So let me make this one suggestion: look at Beowulf at Kalamazoo. It's a very, very useful book, and you will find plenty of material to incorporate. Even if you don't get that (again, it's really good), there should be material on Heaney in there--and that would also alleviate one other concern I have, a mild one, that the article relies very much on Magennis and on Tolkien. Drmies (talk) 22:01, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

  I've ordered a Kalamazoo, so that'll take a little time (though perhaps that needn't hold up this GAN). It'll be nice to add to the (very thorough) commentaries of Magennis and Tolkien.

  I've added a bit on Heaneywulf, based on Chickering's forceful criticism, and extended that article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:20, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

• Chiswick Chap, I'm passing this. You did good work. If you feel like moving on to an FA review, I think you might consider some of my comments. The only thing that I don't like is the textual link to that website, because that version of the text just gives no information at all about the origin of the text. I think it's from that old set of files that have been floating around the internet for years, the ones that all have "Verse: indeterminate West Saxon" or something like that, and I think there are better ones available--ones that provide editorial reckoning. When I'm back in the office I'll see if I can come up with something better. Kiernan's e-Beowulf (E-owulf?) would be nice, for instance. Drmies (talk) 20:25, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

  Thank you, and that sounds great! Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:28, 12 April 2021 (UTC)