Rational:
Beowulf is a text that is almost completely lost to modern day readers. It is written in Old
English, which is only known by handful of academics and students who study the literature and
history of the Anglo-Saxon time period. Most students read Beowulf in translation and
translations are never completely true the original text. However, there is more distance between
the original Beowulf and the translated modern English one than just the language of the written
text. Beowulf was originally oral poem that was probably told in mead halls or village centers. It
most likely changed a little with every Scop and every telling. The one manuscript that has
survived was just one version or one written adaptation of a fluid oral poem. What we have as a
text to use in the classroom is a translation of a translation (Niles 860). In “Rewriting Beowulf:
The Task of Translation” John D. Niles says “Readers of any translation are advised to take it as
an imaginative reconstruction, just as readers of any critical book on Beowulf are wise to take its
statements as provisional parts of a hermeneutic process that builds and continually rebuilds a
web of interwoven observations, hypotheses, and educated guesses. This process extends well
beyond the prejudices or judgments of any one person, and it necessarily involves controversy”
(859). Translations should not be looked at as literal reproductions of the text but as different
interpretations of it
When teaching Beowulf, it is important for students to know that the text is a translation.
If they assume that what they are reading is the original or an edited version of it, they will not
be able to understand how the text has changed over the years and they also need to know a little
bit about how translation works in order to understand the changes it has undergone. Weaving a
little bit of translation theory into some of the lessons on Beowulf can go a long way. According
to Lawrence Venuti, one of the most important aspects of translation theory to teach to students
reading a translation is something called a “remainder.” He defines the remainder as: “textual
effects that work only in the target language, domestic linguistic forms that are added to the
foreign text in the translating process that run athwart the translator's effort to communicate that
text” (205).Venuti proposes to teach this by having his students read two translations of the same
text. He has them look at the specific places where the translations vary and talk about what
could cause that variation. The remainder often is related to the culture of the translator (which
Venuti also teaches). For example, in the Iliad he shows students how translators alter the cause
or description of Achille’s tears so that he looks more masculine. Crying wasn’t an accepted
practice for tough men in the translator’s mind. I have incorporated Venuti’s idea into my unit on
Beowulf. Students read two translations and are always looking for places where the translations
differ and are asked to think about how and why the translations vary.
While looking for the remainders, the students do a lot of group work. I tried to model
my class on the ideas about students doing independent work and doing the learning themselves
that Sheridan Blau presents in “The Literature Workshop.” Blau says that the work a teacher
does when preparing to teach a text is the work that the student really needs to do in order to
“learn” (2-5). My lessons use Blau’s suggestions for getting students to do their own work in the
way they have students doing a lot of group work, reading text multiple times, and independent
hunts for background historic context. I try to minimize the lecturing in this course and let the
student do the work. I also try to use a mix of very old and very new teaching practices. At times
the homework assignments ask students to gloss readings, to imitate forms or writing and to role
play in class. These are practices that have been around since medieval times and before (Bolter
163) (Mueller). I use new technologies to have the students implement some of these and other
practices. They find their historic information on a web quest, they read articles on the computer
and get instructions from and create power point presentations. The first assignment in the unit
involves an Old English Riddle and is actually inspired by one of the original purpose of the old
English riddles – practice interpreting difficult texts (McFadden 329). Some of the older
practices like imitation and role playing are endorsed by more contemporary pedagogical
theorist. In Fresh Takes on Teaching Literary Elements, Michael Smith and Jeffrey Wilhelm say
“Drama activities are especially excellent for conversing with authors” (185). In this unit, the
students use role playing to connect with authors of scholarly articles and translators when the
pretend to be scholars having a discussion or debate about Grendel’s mother.
In addition to looking at two translations of Beowulf, students will also look at
adaptations. They will read excerpts of comic books and see clips of films that have been made
out of Beowulf over the past few decades. I thought it appropriate to include film and graphic text
because the Beowulf manuscript we have is as much as adaptation as the film since the original
medium of Beowulf was oral tradition and note written text. It also will allow students to
continue their discussions about the visual images they get from the poem and what helps create
those visual images when there are no or few words that give visual descriptions of characters
and places and it will also give the students more of an opportunity to see how elements of the
text were changed for the form and how those changes effect the meaning and what those
translations have in common with other texts. More attention will be given to films when the
students get to the units on Frankenstein and Shakespeare where the language is less translated.
The film and graphic text come after students have spent a few classes with regular text.
I cannot take students back it time to give them an authentic experience with Beowulf, but
I can try my best to broaden their view of it. With a combination of student centered teaching
practices, translation theory and modern technology, I hope to give students an experience with
Beowulf where they not only study it as a literary text but examine its progression through the
word as a perpetually mutating text. Through this, they will become familiar with how some of
the official authorities on Beowulf interpret it, see that the authoritative professional readings of
Beowulf do not agree with each other and become empowered to produce their own creative
interpretation of Beowulf. When the unit it over, I hope that they will in some way have made the
text their own while developing critical reading, writing and thinking skills that they can use
when reading text or situation they might encounter in the future.