SELIM 16.indb


Rodrigo Pérez Lorido, Selim 16 (2009): 171–172ISSN: 1132–631X

Bueno Alonso, Jorge L. 2010. Beowulf. Vigo: Rinoceronte Editora S.L. 
163 pp. ISBN: 978-84-92866-17-⒌ 

If it is always a joyous occasion to announce a translation of the epic 
poem Beowulf into a modern language, the joy is double if it is the fi rst 
translation of the poem into that language, as is the case with Jorge L. 
Bueno Alonso’s rendering of the Anglo-Saxon work into the Galician 
language, just published by Rinoceronte Ediciones in its Vetera series.

With his translation of Beowulf into Galician, Dr. Bueno Alonso 
has faced a remarkably serious challenge, and the result cannot be more 
satisfactory. His translation is commendable for many reasons: to begin 
with, it is a verse translation,1 secondly it is an alliterative one, and thirdly, 
it is simply an excellent translation. The text lacks nothing of the rhythm 
and power of the Anglo-Saxon original while very faithfully reproducing 
the story of the Anglo-Saxon heroes, monsters and kings to the smallest 
details. Dr. Bueno’s work is a beautiful, musical and and fl uid literary 
piece, which is entertaining, engrossing and delightful to read. Can this 
be done without a profound knowledge of the Old English language as 
well as of the textual, editorial and linguistic problems of the Anglo-
Saxon canonical works? I don’t think so, and this is something Dr. Bueno 
must necessarily be credited for.

Translating Old English into a modern Romace language is a hard 
task, and not within everybody’s scope. To accomplish this task the 
author produced his own edition of the text  om the original manuscript, 
contrasting the diffi  cult or controversial bits with the opinions and 
theories of other specialists. Extensive documentation and informative 
rigour shines through all the text of the transaltion, thus paying homage 
to the labour of so many good philologists and writers,  om Tolkien to 
Liuzza, and  om Thorkelin to Heaney. From his edition of the original 
text the author has attempted basically “to translate poetry into poetry” 
(p. 26), taking special care in reproducing the rhythm and beat of the Old 
English alliterative verse as faithfully as possible. This concern is refl ected 
in the author’s self-imposed requirement to have two (or preferably three) 
alliterative positions in each verse of the translation, which imposes a very 

1 Let’s remember all translations of Beowulf into the Castilian language were prose ones 
until Lerate and Lerate (1986).



172

Rodrigo Pérez Lorido

Selim 16 (2009)

tight harness on the translatorial work. But it works: when we read Jorge 
L. Bueno’s translation of Beowulf there is something of the rhythm of 
the old epic poem ringing in our ears, everything fl ows in a very natural 
way, and we are easily carried away by the musicality of it all. It doesn’t 
matter if the original structure of the poem is slightly distorted at times 
(a strict necessity if the alliterative requirements mentioned before are to 
be met): here the goal is to achieve a poetic text and therefore reproducing 
the original structure literally is out of the question. This is possibly the 
reason why we don’t get line numbers in the translation (they wouldn’t 
match the lines in the original text), although some could feel a need for 
them. Other debatable points are the author’s choice to retain the original 
division of the poem into 43 parts of “fi tts”, and the inclusion of a heading 
at the beginnig of each one of them as a subtitle. I personally am all for 
it. None of these decisions seriously hinder the progress of the reading 
of the text, and the headings are good guidance for the modern reader, 
especially for those not familiar with the intricacies of the stories and sub-
stories inside Beowulf.

Finally, I would like to mention that the volume includes an interesting 
introduction, with some background information on the history of Beowulf 
as a manuscript and Beowulf as a literary piece, which is clear, informative, 
and particularly interesting for those not familiar with the vicissitudes of 
the earliest English literary documents.

All in all, I think Jorge L Bueno’s translation of Beowulf into the 
Galician language is excellent news. It represents not only one more step 
in the diff usion of a “minority” language which will be appreciated and 
enj oyed by thousands of Galician speakers worldwide, but also a remarkable 
contribution to the universality of the Anglo-Saxon masterpiece. I am sure 
it will be a reference text for a long time and I cannot but congratulate 
the author on it.

Rodrigo Pérez Lorido
Universidad de Oviedo

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Received 19 Oct 2010; revision received 03 Nov 2010; accepted 10 Nov 2010