After Beowulf

by Nicole Markotic

hwæt, another Beowulf translation? Not exactly…

Welcome to Denmark’s Heorot Hall, where King Hrothgar invites to his banquet table everyone but Grendel, Saxon’s cradle-made monster. Dissing this ur-outsider initiates a predictable and monstrous backlash, a Mediæval fracas that only the eponymous Beowulf can quash. Sailing across the whaleroads, he arrives to “quell and queltch and quatch the Grendel beast.”

Beowulf, that still-recognizable hero, embodies a “blank” function, a motive-driven yet motiveless megastar. He’s the young, fit, male, self-sacrificing protagonist-interloper who will fight any monster to protect his people. Or to defend strangers. Or to gain a reputation. Or because he just really wants to…

In her rendering of Beowulf, Nicole Markotić offers a rollicking cover song of fantastical text. These pages will surprise readers as they introduce new ways to embrace, challenge, or click with Anglo-Saxon heroics. Writing original poems, Markotić de-stories the story of one man, who mostly does not play well with others, who fights monsters (and defeats their mothers, too), and who practically invents the poetic tradition of entitled bravery.

Upending the tale with her fresh and enchanting style, Markotić gives a nod to previous translations, winks at canonical critics, bares historical biases, all while gifting transmogrifying pages that will whet your whimsy!

Genres: Poetry

112 pages, Paperback

Published April 5, 2022

About the author

Nicole Markotić is a poet and critic who teaches at the University of Windsor and edits the chapbook publication Wrinkle Press. She has published two poetry books, Connect the Dots and Minotaurs & Other Alphabets, as well as a fictional biography of Alexander Graham Bell, Yellow Pages. She is currently completing a novel.

Reviews

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5! Thank you Coach House for the gifted copy!

I enjoyed this reimagining of Beowulf. I think this is a great resource for anyone currently studying it or wants to revisit it! Such a fun way to bring Beowulf into the 21st century!

[Guadalupe Vial Ulloa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Had to read Beowulf 15 times for a university course. Only version I would ever read fully again, fun, fast and not written by a pretentious white man.

[Louis Cabri]

A call to reckoning with our collective premodern vestiges - which are perhaps most emblematically prevalent today in the culture industry of fantasy, while socially reinforced in many other ways.
With hilarious, vivid contemporary vernacular, After Beowulf is also a send-up feast, from male homosocial bonding protocols to the blind alleys and false mirrors of narrative itself.

[D.A. Lockhart · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despised the form of the poetry itself. A boring take on "the guy is actually terrible trope" Lacks the complexity of story or virtuosity of lyric form to add much to poetic traditions conversation.

[Melia Tessel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it, would prob like it more if I knew more of the context #i'mnotwellread

[Carla · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book summary had me intrigued at “ gifting transmogrifying pages that will whet your whimsy!” I have to admit that this is my least preferred genre but I did appreciate the effort and imagination that Markowic put into “transmogrifying” the original version of Beowulf into After Beowulf. It’s an interesting version and one that will likely be more appealing to a new generation of readers.

[Lossecorme · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book feels less like a translation of the poem Beowulf, and more like a poem about the poem Beowulf. Yes, it describes the main events of Beowulf in the order that they happen, and there are parts, such as speeches, that do read closer to a translation. However, small details are lost and replaced with different small details in the paraphrasing of the story. Many of the historical notes and moral explanations that the original author scattered throughout are mentioned only as brief asides. In their place, this poem has commentary, stage directions, and fourth-wall-breaking sprinkled in; it is acutely self-aware.

Does it work? I’m not enough of a literary scholar to truly make that call, but I think it does. I’m confident that there are layers of meaning that I missed. I do suspect it works better for those who already have some knowledge of Beowulf; I think if I hadn’t known the story pretty well already I would have been lost.

My favourite part? Noticing the words and phrases that marked the author as Canadian.

[Penn Kemp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Do you have to be an English scholar to enjoy this labour of love and kennings?
“His unspoken name loiters before
he speaks himself into that name, so:
fold his name into these lines…
HE swan-dives into that swan-road”

Upturning the hero is fun!