For those who express concern about the (reported) looseness of @MARIADAHVANA’s translation, I will note that Frederick Rebsamen turned:

feasceaft funden he þæs frofre gebad (found destitute, he prospered as consolation)

into:

/floating with gifts
a strange king-child.

— John Dumas (@impofthediverse) August 27, 2020

I have no problem with loose translation, but from the excerpts I’ve read of the Maria Dahvana Headley rendering, I don’t care for it. As the New Yorker review said, it’s a “Beowulf for Our Moment.”

It’s like a Hamilton-ized Beowulf, in other words. However, I want my Beowulf to feel fey and strange, to read as if it emerges from a different world — because it freakin’ does. The Anglo-Saxons did not have minds like ours. I want to feel that, to know that.

That’s why I prefer the Tolkien translation, and why I prefer it is exactly why I think people dislike Tolkien’s writing in general. It feels otherworldly, and is awkward therefore. Many of these mooks say that Tolkien is a bad writer, but the reality is that they are bad readers; Tolkien achieved exactly what he wanted to achieve in his writing, and that is the one true sign of a good writer.

So this latest translation of Beowulf is not for me, and that’s ok. I didn’t like Hamilton and I don’t like Maria Dahvana Headley’s Beowulf as they are attempting to do the same things for the same group of people.