It's strange and unexpected, but also appropriate and heartening, that Beowulf—ground zero for literature in English—would become a bestseller at the dawn of the 21st century. Why becomes less of a ...

I started reading Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf on the way to my first cross-country meet in 8th grade. I didn’t know anything about the story—I didn’t even know that the language printed on the other side ...

Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times. As seen in a new collection, “The Translations of Seamus Heaney,” the Nobel laureate was a prolific and skilled interpreter of other ...

Do we need another Beowulf? Hasn’t our culture had enough of muscular Nordic warriors flinging themselves into battle and generously dispensing loot to their fighting buddies? Judging by this ...