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The library's Classics Book Club meets on the first Tuesday of each month at 7 PM. All are welcome.
Whenever possible, copies of each month's title will be available for checkout with a library card.
No registration required.
This book club is currently offered online. Click this link to connect via Zoom. Password: 3GWdHC
For more book groups, visit cityofportsmouth.com/library/book-discussion-groups.
Beowulf translated by Maria Dahvana Headley
Tuesday September 7 | 7 PM
Nearly twenty years after Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf --and fifty years after the translation that continues to torment high-school students around the world--there is a radical new verse translation of the epic poem by Maria Dahvana Headley, which brings to light elements that have never before been translated into English, recontextualizing the binary narrative of monsters and heroes into a tale in which the two categories often entwine, justice is rarely served, and dragons live among us.
A man seeks to prove himself as a hero. A monster seeks silence in his territory. A warrior seeks to avenge her murdered son. A dragon ends it all. The familiar elements of the epic poem are seen with a novelist's eye toward gender, genre, and history—Beowulf has always been a tale of entitlement and encroachment, powerful men seeking to become more powerful, and one woman seeking justice for her child, but this version brings new context to an old story. While crafting her contemporary adaptation of Beowulf, Headley unearthed significant shifts lost over centuries of translation.