Przepisywanie Beowulfa
Rewriting Boewulf:

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Meandering Translation

Summary/Abstract: J.R.R. Tolkien’s works related to translation include both translations andadaptations in the form of pastiche. All of them have been published asposthumous editions, equipped with detailed critical commentaries andedited by the writer’s son, Christopher Tolkien. Among recent publicationsin English and Polish, one that deserves particular attention isa 1926 prose translation of the Old English poem Beowulf (2014, Polished. 2015). This edition presents Tolkien performing a few roles, acting asa translator, translation critic, editor, commentator, literary scholar, linguist,and creative writer. In fact, “translation” becomes a textual hybridin which one can observe the work of a translator from the initial phase ofclose reading of a source text through three variants of prose translation(two from 1926 and one from 1942); alternative fragmentar translationsin alliterative verse; a detailed philological and cultural commentary composedof lecture notes; original literary works inspired by Beowulf, whichinclude the short story Sellic Spell (in two English versions and as a backtranslation into Old English); and two versions of the original poem TheLay of Beowulf. As a result, the 2014 edition of Tolkien’s Beowulf realizesthe ideal of a translation once described by Vladimir Nabokov: the text oftranslation emerges from multilayered commentary, which, in Tolkien’swork, crosses the boundaries of languages and genres.

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