Beowulf Redux - Seamus Heaney Trans

So, I have a question regarding Beowulf. I've checked back to the previous discussions but I haven't managed to resolve it and I didn't want to hijack another thread so I've started this one.

I get that the old English and modern translations should be different. I get that there is a grey area when it comes to dual language works. I'm still not sure about the consensus about how individual translations are treated. Some of them seem to be separated out according to translation. Some seem to be grouped together. This leads to inaccurate entries on the Author Page for Seamus Heaney, for example. Combined under Beowulf on this page are a variety of translations not by Heaney. This bugs me as my 'connection' with the work is from the side of Heaney's poetry, not the old English poetry. I don't want someone else's interpretation to affect my connections site-wide. But I don't want to separate versions from the Heaney version if this is something that has been done intentionally. If it has, then my question would be: why are some other versions separate?

Not to be on the side of 'over-separation', but I strongly feel that the spurious works should be separated from Heaney's. When it comes to poetry reworkings/translations, the individual poet translating is as important as the work being translated, so strongly does their style influence the finished work so for my mind, this shouldn't be combined with other versions of Beowulf in this way, but that's possibly because I see it from the perspective of someone who is interested in it as an example of Heaney's work. I'm not alone in this - it was, after all, Heaney who won the Whitbread prize, not 'anonymous', therefore credit is being given for his personal impact on this.

Sorry, that went on for a long time! I'm just trying to sort my own head out on this. Opinions please?

I am not an expert on combining or on Beowulf, but I agree. I'm having trouble working out a basis for my agreement within the rules of combining, as I understand them, though. I think the dead language exception suggests that translations of Beowulf shouldn't be combined back in with the original (...right?); on the other hand, Heaney's is a facing-page translation, which means it also has the Anglo-Saxon in it. (Or was there also a single language edition of that? Mine is dual.)

Here's what I have for Beowulf in my library: http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=upstairsgirl&deepsearch=beowulf

One (the Mitchell) is straight Anglo-Saxon. Chickering and Heaney, though, are both facing page translations. I don't think they should be lumped together, though. Heaney's translation, if I recall correctly, was considered to be groundbreaking in language and style, as far as Beowulf translations go, and reached, I think, a much wider audience than something like Chickering, which was, I think, intended for a more academic audience. I'm pretty sure this goes against how translations are generally treated on the site, but I don't know how "translations + dead language exception" shakes out. I don't know enough about other classic examples (the Iliad, the Odyssey, etc...) to be able to intelligently comment on that.

Anyway, I'm for keeping them separate, for whatever that's worth.

Edited to add: my sense is that the majority of the people reading Heaney's translation are not also really reading the Anglo-Saxon; those who are will likely also have read other things in Anglo-Saxon, whereas if you have read the Chickering you are much more likely to have also read things like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as well as Beowulf in the original. I do not imagine too many people read the Chickering translation for fun, but then I acquired it as a textbook, so I may be biased.

Yep, mine's a facing page translation too (I just realised that I haven't entered it into my library yet - doh!). It was exactly the 'groundbreaking' nature that leads me to think that it should be separate - it is of as much interest to scholars of Heaney's poetry as it is to scholars focused on Beowulf itself.

Before I posted this, I separated a couple of works from the Heaney one but then I stopped before I did too much damage without getting a wider opinion. I'm not going to do any more until America wakes up and chips in. I can always recombine the ones I separated later.

I see your point, and do I agree it's bad if (almost) all of Beowulf shows up on the Heaney page.

But this is something of a can of worms. Take Homer for example. There are a gazillion different translations and editions, some poetic, some prose, some of them great literature as translations in their own right too. And I'm sure the same goes for many of the great epics. So it would mean having to strip many of such classics apart and recombining them by edition / translation - which would, in my view, run against the basic idea of LT combining.

Having said all that, maybe if Heaney is more an adaptation than a translation - which is what I'm picking up here - then it probably should be kept isolated. And - if all the Heaney versions are dual language it should certainly be apart from modern language only editions.

But if it's "just" another good translation, I don't see any good reason to keep it apart from the Chickering and other editions containing the original.

So, I neglected to link. Here's the Heaney Beowulf editions page (minus the couple I separated out earlier, which, as I said, can go back if that's the way people think it should look):

http://www.librarything.com/work/2449742/editions/

To name but a few, it includes Signet Classics Editions, Dover Thrift, Mentor, Broadview Literary Texts, Perennial and Norton Critical Editions (non-Heaney translated version) and others besides. It just seems wrong to have these listed under the Heaney listing.

I see your point, but I also think that all the translations of the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Phlosopher's Stone should still be combined. Is there some kind of concrete distinction between Beowolf and Harry Potter that you can draw a useful rule for when to combine translations and when not?

Yeah, it's just supposed to be Beowulf in general I guess - which in itself is defendable - but which somehow (through the algorithms that be) ended up with Heaney as preferred author. I would love to see a way for such cases to at least make it something like "Beowulf Poet".

But that's a different question than IF the Heaney version should be combined or not.

The Norton Critical Edition of Beowulf, by the way, is also a case apart, since it's heavily annotated instead of a "mere" translation.

Ah, if only the "relations" feature would be here already....

Yes, the "relations" feature would really be helpful here.

I think the argument could be made that the Heaney translation has enough baggage associated with it to qualify it as a different work on the "social significance scale". However, having said that, I don't think that every two-bit translation needs to be separated out and maintained as a separate work. (I am fundamentally a "lumper" not a "splitter").

I have no objection to someone taking the time to carve out the Heaney translation and posting a disambiguation notice as to WHY they feel that THIS PARTICULAR translation warrants special treatment.

I think that in my mind I have some sort of ruler that I use based on number of copies - for instance if there are 500 copies of a work and 2 people have a copy that might be considered different enough to carve out I leave it in with the main work because separating it out "severs" too many connections and creates essentially a splinter. BUT if 200 people have a copy then separating it leaves them connected with a significant percentage of the other LTers with the work that they might have a stronger connection with.
(Not sure if that is clear - will reconsider after work.)

#6 jjwilson61, I agree with you and wouldn't normally be on the side of splitting off a translation - I think that it's more that this is an unusual case (I don't think that you would see a mere translation getting the attention and consideration on it's own merit that Heaney got for this). To take the Harry Potter example, I've read the English and the Polish version and they are, to all intents and purposes, the same bar the language whereas Heaney's version is more of a 'treatment', I guess. The fact that he's been acknowledged personally for it, with regards to the Whitbread prize to name but one occasion, would lead me to think it should be an individual case - after all, as far as CK Awards goes, it's not Beowulf that won but Heaney's Beowulf. Maybe the rule should hinge on how exactly someone's work is viewed/rewarded? Hmmm.

#7 BarkingMatt, it's just supposed to be Beowulf in general I guess - which in itself is defendable - defendable for sure, but that being the case, I think I would still argue for Heaney's to be separated ... but that's what makes it a complicated issue, I guess. I know there's a different issue with the Norton editions, but it bears noting that there is a separate Norton Edition for the Heaney translation (which I guess with the current sway of opinion would follow Heaney wherever he went ... in a non-literal sense).

#8 PortiaLong, I don't think that every two-bit translation needs to be separated out and maintained as a separate work - I completely agree, especially with something like this where there are a myriad of, I guess 'non-significant' translations (don't everybody jump on me for that term!)

I think that especially for selected works the different translations should not be combined (if they can be identified). I posted such an opinion under Clausewitz because I know that there are at least two English language versions of his "On War" that are very different from each other. There is also the case of Sun Tzu (or Sun Tse) whose own "Art of War" appears in several different translations that have resulted in very different works in English. I would think the same practice should apply to classics such as Beowulf. But ultimately it depends upon how well the different translations have been identified by the LT owner in their own catalog. This may mean that you would have one combination of the work of one translator, another combination focused upon a second translator, and a third combination, perhaps, that would bring together all of the published editions whose translator is not identified (though ISBNS might hep on this a bit).

My two cents - as an acquaintance says, "Your mileage may vary."

Robert A. Mosher

Another pertinent example for #6 would be Heaney & Baranczak's translation of Treny/Laments by Kochanowski, which I have read in both languages and which exists in a dual facing edition. This I would be happy to keep combined with the main work. It was a translation rather than something which existed as an individual entity the way Beowulf did.

At any rate, you made me want to find a copy of the Heaney edition - I don't know it and apparently I'm missing out.

#12, then my work here is done ;)

#12, It's worth finding. It's quite amazing, actually.

I don't agree that specific translations should be separated out. Yes, the Heaney translation won awards; there are in fact awards for translation, as there are for illustrations. The Arthur Rackham illustrations for Alice in Wonderland are particularly notable, for example; should they be separated out from the other Alice in Wonderlands? Separating out this translation breaks the connection between the people who bought a copy of Beowulf that happened to be translated by Heaney and those who happened to buy a different translation of Beowulf.

Nabokov's translation of Eugene Onegin is dramatically different from any other English translation of Eugene Onegin, and its readership likewise different. Which one gets connected to the original and French, German, etc., translations--the normal English reading translations or the translation of Eugene Onegin designed to be god-awfully literal and the one true translation of Eugene Onegin into English?

#15 -
The logic of the subject suggests to me that you have a separate entry for each translation from the original language, especially when the translator iws known.

Robert A. Mosher

>16 RobertMosher:: No, sorry, the basic rule of LT combining is that different translations are the same "work". I agree that the differences may be important to some, that's why I have several editions of some works too. In fact, as prosfilaes pointed out, it may also sometimes be the illustrator that makes them significantly different. Reasoning this way we would end up with "editions" instead of "works".

The point is: is the Heaney edition so much different that it warrants being separated? So far, the only thing that I find convincing is the fact that it seems to be biligual (giving the original Old English as well, but do all Heaney editions have this?) But in that case it should, imho, be combined with other similar editions (Chickering and Mitchell).

>15 prosfilaes: But that's specifically against the design rules of the work system; translations are supposed to be combined.

"Rules are answers to yesterday's problems"

Robert A. Mosher

19>

That's rather combative.

Look, a lot of us were unhappy with the "combine translations" rule when combination was first introduced. The thing is, combination is not aimed at specialists, for whom details matter -- it's aimed at a middle ground who may know there are multiple translations of Beowulf but doesn't really care. It may not be ideal, but it works.

>19 RobertMosher:: Sure, but that's not very helpful. I didn't intend it as "rules are rules" or anything like that. But separating everything here on LT out into editions instead of "works" would also have dramatic consequences for user connections.

>15 prosfilaes:: I completely see your point. Like I said, I'm pretty sure there's no justification for my gut position on this within the philosophy and structure of the idea of "works" on LT. I know the arguments I advanced are pretty weak. But your post got me thinking about exactly what about Beowulf makes me reluctant to combine, and I think it's this:

Eugene Onegin, in all of its forms, seems to be fairly well combined under Pushkin himself, regardless of the translator of any given edition, but, as klarusu pointed out in #5, what's happened is a lot of Beowulf editions have been combined under Heaney-as-author, even when he wasn't the translator, and I think that is maybe the main source of my discomfort with combining here. (Conversely, a quick look suggests that Eugene Onegin does not show up on Nabokov's page at all.) I would feel better about it if the translations were being consolidated under something like "the Beowulf poet" or whatever, than if the Chickering (which appears not to have had any non-Chickering translations combined in with it, oddly enough) were combined into the Heaney. Maybe it's because there isn't a known original author, or maybe it's just that there's a habit of thinking of translators of this particular *work* as sitting in an author role, that most editions seem to have a translator in the author slot, data-wise. With 7,000 or so copies floating around, it's not likely that a change like that is going to happen, so... I once again have no good answers, but I think maybe I have a better sense of the nature of my objection, at least. Really, this is maybe a broader debate about the nature of authorship, and how to handle that within the data structure of LT? Which is way outside the scope of anything I could comment on even unintelligently.

If the answer is going to be "combine them all," that's not the end of my world. I still think translations, even facing-page translations, should be kept separate from editions in Anglo-Saxon, though, under the dead language exception.

If the "social connections" logic were applied strictly, it might make some sense to group Heaney with the translation-only editions and Chickering with the original-language editions, since people tend to own the former for the translation and the latter for studying Old English. But splitting two Old English-Modern English facing-page editions this way is not exactly going to make obvious sense to everyone.

Given the existence of the dead languages exception, I don't think there's really any good solution for facing-page translations. Putting them into their own third category just cuts the connections with both original and translation.

I absolutely agree it's a problem when any particular translator floats up on top as "THE" author of such works - as often happens. I hate that aspect of it.

As for "translations, even facing page translations" &c. - I don't fully agree. I think usually people buying books including dead language original texts do so because it includes that original text. Which in my view would lead to combine with the original dead language version only editions. But this is going into those gray areas of combining, and I could live with the opposite decision.

Beowulf is hard to combine because there is no clear author's name, so the translator gets put in that spot. I'm not sure what to do with that.

24> I think it depends too much on the book in question for an easy answer. If you buy a bilingual Iliad, then it's because you know enough Ancient Greek to make it worth your time and money. But for more obscure texts, the bilingual may be the only one available, or simply the standard edition, like many of the Loebs. Bilinguals certainly give the impression of being more faithful to the original. Personally, I've got several bilinguals that I would read the English and use my smattering of IE languages to glance at the other page. I tend to default to leaving it up to random combiners.

Translations of ancient books - probably including Beowulf and certainly including things like The Gilgamesh Epic and The Egyptian Book of the Dead - have a fundamental difference from translations from extant languages: the original texts are often fragmentary, a lot depends on translator's interpolations and extrapolations, and archaeologists keep turning up supplementary material (sometimes even including previously unknown fragments of the original texts). I have several translations of Gilgamesh and they are very different. I would be inclined to combine translations if they are from extant languages, but keep them separate if they are not.

The "Egyptian Book of the Dead" is very difficult because, in a way, there's no such thing. There were texts used in burial context, but there were vastly different versions of these according to period, region, or even predominant cult (Amun vs. Osiris, for instance). Basically, I wouldn't combine ANY edition of this "book" with any other.

26> I'm not sure that works that well. Beowulf is a counter-example; there's one manuscript, and as far as we know it could have been the only manuscript, but what we have is mostly complete. On the other hand, the Swiss Family Robinson is a diverging mess of additions, deletions and abridgments in translation.

>28 prosfilaes: But translations of Beowulf depend what we know about northern Europe in the sixth century, and even if no other manuscript is ever discovered historians and archaeologists will find new information that will contribute to new interpretations. For Swiss Family Robinson I doubt that there will be any stunning new discoveries about 19th Century Switzerland or Indonesia that will dramatically change the translations.

>27 Nicole_VanK: I concur about the Book of the Dead; the Budge translation and the Allen translation and the Faulkner translation aren't even based on the same texts.

#20 - my apologies, it didn't occur to me as being combative. Consider it shorthand for "Perhaps we need to reexamine why we have this rule?"

#21 - I was intrigued by the suggestion that perhaps only some translations or translations of particular works need to be separated. Actually, I'm not sure that this would in fact result in an explosion of entries. First step might be to limit separate entries to only those translated works for whom we have a named translator. Perhaps a second hurdle for translations that are considered particularly significant by the relevant critical world.

For example, there are, as I recall off the top of my head, only about 3 translations of Sun Tzu's (or Sun-Tse's) "Art of War" into English. I have two of these using Samuel Griffith's and Lionel Giles translations. Each is significantly different from the other. My third version of "Art of War" is a volume that combines Sun Tzu's work with another work of commentary by a later Chinese general (again in translation). So I have a separate entry for each work.

Perhaps the mountain isn't as high as we think it is?

(Apologies, must be the Chinese influence)

Robert A. Mosher

#30:

Oftentimes when everyone is saying that things are done a certain way, then the word has come down from "above"!!

In other words, Tim has spoken on this topic a number of times and his is firm in his opinion that translations are treated a certain way... and that combinations of works are to occur in a certain way.... for social connections, not bibliographic perfection.

So, telling a group of people that "they" need to re-examine a rule to which they are adhering, is rather rude, arrogant & condescending.

This is not "our" site. It is Tim's. He gets to make the rules. He does listen to us, but since he designed this site & maintains it... basically he owns it... he gets to run it whatever way he wishes to run it.

Now, while it is not "my site" I do like coming here and the people here are fantastic. I also like the fact that we can politely disagree about things, even with Tim, but we "play nice" with each other.

So, Mr. Mosher, please play nice here. Thank you.

Good Grief!

Robert A. Mosher

Mr Mosher, would you like to 'translate' that comment for us?

Please remember that comments can be misunderstood online...

and you wouldn't want someone to misunderstand your comments, would you?

I was quoting Charlie Brown.

Robert A. Mosher

>17 Nicole_VanK:. The point is: is the Heaney edition so much different that it warrants being separated? So far, the only thing that I find convincing is the fact that it seems to be biligual (giving the original Old English as well, but do all Heaney editions have this?)

No. This edition does, but this one doesn't, as far as I can tell. (There's no note indicating that the text is parallel, and the pagination is about half as long as the first one.) Plus, there's an audiobook version, which one assumes isn't "parallel," as well as an illustrated version. Right now, the illustrated version is its own work (which I think is debatable, if it's not abridged) and the first three are all combined under the same work.

I can see both sides of the argument — I don't think that the Heaney edition is particularly "different," it's just very popular, so it's having an undue effect on the rest of the works, in terms of making it look like Heaney wrote every copy of Beowulf out there.

Until we have the ability to assign a canonical author (such as "Beowulf poet") to a work we will have the problem that it will end up looking like one of the translators wrote all of the copies of the work.

After reading all the debate on this topic I would like to revise my opinion from message 8. While I personally don't have an objection to separating out socially significant versions (such as Heaney) it would appear that there is no generally accepted consensus (among people more familiar with the work than I am) as to where that dividing line would occur.

One answer might be to lump them all together and write a detailed disambiguation notice along the lines of:

Which-ever-translator-floats-to-the-top is NOT the author of Beowulf but one of its many translators.

While awaiting a "related works" feature in LT, all Beowulf translations are currently being combined into this Beowulf "megawork." You should be aware, however, that there may be differences among the various editions that are deemed significant by Beowulf scholars. For instance, translator Seamus Heaney won the Whitbread Award for his translation. Some editions may contain the original language on the facing page while others may not. We hope these issues will be resolved with future improvements to our beloved LT.

PS. FWIW my copy of Beowulf (translated by some dude name Burton) can be found here:
http://www.librarything.com/work/2443730
so when y'all have decided what to do you can chuck it in wherever you like.

PPS. This type of debate is why I don't mess with Bibles anymore - Bible scholars are WAY more rabid than Beowulf scholars.

>28 prosfilaes: I suspect there's much more research going into 19th century Switzerland family life then all of sixth century England, and that in neither case will the results dramatically change the translations.

30> The goal of the system is that the person who has Beowulf, Eugene Onegin, Alice in Wonderland and Huckleberry Finn on the shelf will be connected to someone who has the same books on their shelf, even if the first person reads them in Swedish and the second in Urdu. Anything that defeats that purpose must be weighed carefully, and separating out all, or all notable, translations just doesn't cut it.

Thanks for pitching in everyone - I'm quite happy to recombine in the couple of works I separated out, and having read all the above, I think that's probably the best way to go. I think, based on the limitations that are inherent in the current system, Portia's suggestion in #36 of using disambiguation to spell out why it's been done and grouping them together as a mega-work is a good compromise. I certainly think that either everything translated (non-abridged) should be combined as a mega-work or they should be effectively separated as it's a bit here and there right now. Without having texts to hand, I wouldn't know exactly which ones are facing page with the old English, however, it wouldn't offend me too much to see these lumped in with translations for now until there's a more specific way of dealing with this kind of thing. I would still plump for keeping the plain Anglo-Saxon versions as a separate entry because any ambiguity with facing-page translations disappears when dealing with a straight Anglo-Saxon language version...

Would anyone have a major objection if I went back and combined the translations as one for now and kept the Anglo-Saxon editions separate? Or would it be better to have a work that includes only facing-page editions as well?

On the "social connection" criterion, I think in principle it makes most sense for Chickering's facing-page edition to be combined with the originals, not with the translations. This probably isn't the usual practice, though, and whether it should be done with Heaney's is very debatable at best.

As a rule of thumb, I think that in general it makes more sense for facing-page translations for dead languages to go with the originals rather than the translations. There are many situations where this breaks down, either because the translation is particularly notable (Heaney) or because no other translation is available (cf. prosfilaes in #25), but perhaps those can be handled as exceptions.

But then there's the "significant extra content" criterion as well. The only edition I have is Chickering's, so I don't know about the others, but almost half of what's between the covers of that volume is commentary and other explanatory text by the editor. I guess this would be a good argument for splitting (cf. Norton edition mentioned by BarkingMatt in #7).

Given the contradiction, I suppose the most sensible course would be to do whatever causes the least trouble (in the sense of inappropriate connections) until LT develops a system for related works (something I don't expect anytime soon, since adding in major structural features seems to be quite difficult for Tim et al.). I guess splitting generally causes less trouble than lumping, except that it's harder to maintain.

>38 klarusu:. Without having texts to hand, I wouldn't know exactly which ones are facing page with the old English . . .

If you do a search on WorldCat or in another library catalog, that information is generally added as a note. See here.

Thanks Katya, I've never ventured onto WorldCat but I do tend to search around the web for this kind of info. I'd never considered using WorldCat or my local library catalogue (heaven knows why!), which makes much more sense and would probably yield better info quicker!

I'm just your friendly, neighborhood librarian, happy to offer assistance. ;)

To complicate things further : I notice there is now also a Norton Critical Edition of Beowulf with the Heaney translation (used to be the Donaldson translation).

If someone wants to & has the time, you CAN force an author "to the top"... I've done it many times... but I don't have the time to do it in the near future. Check the info & discussion thread for instructions.

Also, if you do so, post here & let others know that you are taking beowulf apart & putting him/it back together again. if you can get a few people together to work on it, great.... divide the job by 'authors' & then carefully combine.

Put a disambiguation notice on BEFORE you start.

Once you have set the author to the one you want, people can add individual copies & it "shouldn't" change the main author.... it would take separating & recombining....

Please note that I am stating that with the size of the Beowulf page, it will take a HOURS if not more than a day... it depends upon the experience & speed of those working on it. It is also extremely frustrating if things go a little wrong... So if we hear a number of loud screams from the Beowulf page we will know why.

>So if we hear a number of loud screams from the Beowulf page we will know why.

Grendel? ;)

38: I'll personally be very unhappy if Chickering's scholarly translation gets combined with Heaney's popular adaptation, but I don't run the universe or even LT... This sort of mess is why I avoid looking at the work pages on things like Beowulf and Homer, it just gives me indigestion.

>46 gwernin:
Agreed, which is why I check on the Chickering page every once in a while to keep it cleaned up.

On the edge of what we're discussing, I separated out Beowulf and Other Old English Poems, by Constance B. Hieatt ( http://www.librarything.com/work/3296390 ). I'm indecisive here, but it's better than the situation we had, with some combined in and some out. On the merge side, some 90 pages and most of the introduction is devoted to Beowulf, with only 50 pages devoted to other poetry, and the Preface to the Second Edition starts "This edition of Beowulf is obviously not intended for an audience of Old English scholars...". On the separate work side, it's not like an edition of Beowulf with the Finnsburg Fragment (which this text includes) or an edition of Dracula with Dracula's Guest; a third of the book is devoted to poetry with no obvious connection to Beowulf. When buying it, I perceived it as an anthology of Old English verse, not an edition of Beowulf. Either way, most of the copies of this book are now in one work.

#44 skittles, Thanks for the info. I've recombined the couple I took out but the bigger job is one I don't have time for right now. If no-one has dived in before the Christmas break, I'm going to revisit it then. When/If I do, I'll post to the group first ...

OK, so what we are wrestling with is whether to regard every translation of Work X as equivalent, or whether to regard the translation as a Work on its own. LT doesn't have a convenient way to express a given work as BOTH a Work and a Book.

Generally I'm a lumper, but in this case I'm not. I have the Dover edition of Machiavelli's The Prince, and I don't like it. I would rather have a different one. I have several translations of both the Iliad and the Odyssey. My husband bought a copy of Heaney's translation of Beowulf because it was by Heaney.

BTW, one reason people use Heaney as the author is because that's what the book says. In big letters.

50> The basic rule says that translations are combined. That's not really up for discussion; uncombining translations changes the entire complexion of the system and seriously negatively impact social connections for many users.

#51
I was talking about this with my wife who is also on LT and we begin to understand the issues a bit better. She and I approach this from what we call the viewpoint of the librarian. We are more focused on the issues related to fully and accurately capturing the details of the individual books. So, for us the issue of translations done by different translators is our central focus. We are now beginning to understand where the point of disagreement is coming from in the context of the social connections aspect of LT.

Personally, I thought of the social connections part as coming about through the different discussion groups and other elements of LT - not through the book connections element. I think this was also why I didn't fully understand the issue of directly contacting LT members when you believed that a book entry or author entry was in error and should be connected. I actually had such a message from another LT member early one in my membership in LT, and I thanked the sender because their information gave me a fuller knowledge and understanding of the book in question.

So anyway, the crux of the matter seems to be whether or not we can find an approach that reflects both of these communities' interests - or not.

But at least I think I understand the conversation more fully now.

Robert A. Mosher

BTW, one reason people use Heaney as the author is because that's what the book says. In big letters.

Hiya Irene, I wasn't questioning the assignation of authorship to Heaney for his translation, more that it seems that the main work for Beowulf has Heaney floating to the top as author, then becoming an umbrella for the rest of the translations under that work.....

53: Oh, thanks for clearing it up.

There are far more copies of the Heaney translation than any other, so wouldn't majority rule?

BTW, how does a person get italics or boldface? It is a browser thing? I'm using Safari on a Mac.

>50 IreneF:
Actually, it says "{...} translation by Seamus Heaney" (but the "translation by" isn't in big letters)

>54 IreneF:
Just type HTML markup: <i>italics</i> and/or <b>bold</b>

Pretty much the same situation, by the way, exists for The Poetic Edda where ALL translations are attributed Lee M. Hollander.

54>

Irene, you can bold or italics in any browser by typing the HTML code in the message box. Bold is {b}bold{/b}, and italics is (are??) {i}italics{/i}. Just replace the curly brackets with angle brackets.

>54 IreneF: "There are far more copies of the Heaney translation than any other, so wouldn't majority rule?"

Yep. But with most books that are read in translation, you've still got an original author to attach the book to. So, regardless of how few people are reading The Illiad in the original Greek, Homer is still showing up as the main author. What's annoying people in this situation is that there are many people who have editions of Beowulf that have nothing to do with Seamus Heaney, but he's showing up as the author for the entire work. :S

I didn't realize until reading this thread that people were keeping the Chickering translation separate; mine was lumped in with all the others. I did some cleanup, but managed to orphan one edition (it has the right ISBN for the Chickering translation, but won't show up on the editions page.)

Here's the orphaned edition:

http://www.librarything.com/work/6820185/editions/

58>

I think part of the reason Beowulf is more subject to this problem than, say, the Iliad is that we don't have a name for the original author, so people are more likely to fill in the translator rather than leaving it as "Anonymous" with the translator as an "Other Author".

It seems like there's a few Old English editions stuck in the Beowulf by Heaney work, too.