ABSTRACT
It has already been declared by others that the Beowulf, though handed down in the Anglo-Saxon language, is from its basis a German poem. The ‘commentaries’ given at the end proceed further to the demonstration that the myth is a German one, which has left many traces among us. We do admittedly already possess two most meritorious translations of the poem, and the most recent one of Grein (1857), to which I acknowledge myself still more indebted than to that of Ettmüller (1840), deserves in full measure the praise paid to it as to the whole work by that most professional of judges, Prof. Dietrich of Marburg [1810-83]. Just the same, it did not seem to me superfluous to offer a third, directed to a larger public, and one which without wishing to compete with the former works in literal translation should proceed rather from a poetic rebirth of the old poem. To let the spirit and atmosphere of a far-off time of heroes re-echo, and yet to lend to the expression the
beauty. Only in this way did I believe I could bridge over a thousand-year chasm and win a new naturalisation among us for this poem, emigrated with the Angles and Saxons.
