在线阅读本书 Composed toward the end of the first millennium, Beowulf is the classic Northern epic of a hero's triumphs as a young warrior and his fated death as a defender of his people. The poem is about encountering the monstrous, defeating it, and then having to live on, physically and psychically exposed in the exhausted aftermath. It is not hard to draw parallels in this story to the historical curve of consciousness in the twentieth century, but the poem also transcends such considerations, telling us psychological and spiritual truths that are permanent and liberating. In his new translation, Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney has produced a work that is both true, line by line, to the original poem and a fundamental expression of his own creative gift. A New York Times bestseller, winner of the Whitbread Award.

《希尼诗文集》所收作品时间跨度有30年，包括从10本诗集中选出的诗作78首，从4本论集中精选出的随笔、评论16篇，涵盖了希尼不同时期的创作风格，绝大部分都是首译。希尼为此中文译本诗文集专门撰写了序言。