The Grinnell Beowulf:

Six Grinnell students have discovered that the translation process is as transformative for the translators as it is for the text. Eva Dawson ’14, Emily Johnson ’14, Jeanette Miller ’14, Logan Shearer ’14, Aniela Wendt ’14, and Kate Whitman ’14, along with Tim Arner, assistant professor of English, have been working on an annotated modern English translation of the epic poem Beowulf since the summer of 2012. The process began when Arner and Whitman discussed the possibility of a Beowulf-related Mentored Advanced Project (MAP). Arner sent emails to students, and eventually the group came together.The students have varied backgrounds — linguistics, sociology, creative writing, Latin — that aided in the ambitious and painstaking translation process. Using spreadsheets that listed each word, its meaning, and its grammatical role, the students translated the words of the poem. Word order in Old English is very different from modern English, so the initial translations had to be tinkered with until they both made sense and reflected the meaning and ambiguities of the original text. 

Translation by committee is an uncommon practice; although this group worked well, there were inevitable arguments. Squaring seven different opinions, all of which may be valid, is a lengthy process, but the group never moved on until everyone was satisfied. By the end of the summer of 2012 they had finished translating all 3,182 lines of Beowulf. According to Arner, that was the easy part. That was also the well-funded part

During the 2012–13 school year and the summer that followed, the students continued to work. They had decided that what they were working on could be much more than a translation. It could be an edition with notes, and it could be a real, physical book they could hold in their hands. This project was no longer just a MAP, and these students kept working for more than a year with minimal funding. They enlisted the help of Caleb Neubauer ’13, a postbaccalaureate fellow, to create artwork for the book based on this new translation. 

The group partnered with Press, a group on campus that publishes several books written by students each year. The Grinnell Beowulf is the first academic work the organization has published. The book has also been published digitally on Digital Grinnell (go to digital.grinnell.edu), which will allow anyone to read it or use it to teach. One of the group’s hopes is that this edition will be used by high school teachers and college professors to teach Beowulf. There aren’t a lot of open access, online Beowulf translations, let alone annotated versions with accessible and poetic modern English.

At the release event in October, Arner attested to the significance of this new translation of Beowulf. “It’s the edition I’ve always wanted to have in my classroom,” he said, “and it’s unlike any other translation or edition. It was produced by undergraduate students for undergraduate students.” He intends to use this book when teaching Beowulf and to recommend it to colleagues. 

This process produced more than a translation of Beowulf with notes; it transformed the students both as scholars and as people. At the outset, Kate Whitman “knew something special had started. I could not, however, have anticipated just how much every ‘Beowulfer’ has taught me as a scholar, a student, and a friend.” Eva Dawson considers this project to be one of her greatest academic achievements: “I have never worked on an academic project for this long, or with this much continuous effort, in my life.” Several of the students said that this project has changed the way they read, write, and research. Having to parse every word of a text deepens the level of analysis the students engage in. They also feel more a part of the scholarly community, rather than like students. 

The friendships formed during this project are even more precious to these scholars than any other result. “I have found some of my best friends through this project, and I am perhaps most grateful for that. I often reflect on this project, and as much as I love the work we did, I cannot imagine doing it with any other people,” Emily Johnson says. 

This has been their defining experience at Grinnell. These scholars began their project after their second year at the College, and this year they’re graduating. “As rewarding as this book is, I’ve been rewarded a hundred times over with the relationships built because of it,” Johnson says.