English Literature Professor Craig Williamson Reads from His Translation of Beowulf

When Professor of English Literature Craig Williamson first let his students hear the 200 lines of Beowulf he had translated, one of them threw a copy of an already published translation they had been reading in class on the floor. He told Williamson the translator of that version should be ashamed. The class enjoyed Williamson's translation so much, they  "assigned" him a certain number of lines to translate every week. When the class ended, Williamson continued to finish what is now a completed translation, Beowulf and Other Old English Poems (2011, University of Pennsylvania Press). Here, Williamson reads and then translates about 20 lines of the poem from his book during an honors seminar.