In addition to the four discussed in previous chapters, many other English-language verse translators have been busy on Beowulf in the past fifty years or so, particularly in America. Earlier in the book I noted the comment from the prose translator David Wright in 1957, ‘Almost everyone has heard of Beowulf.’ That was overstating things then and would be today as well, but Beowulf – though not in the original language – is now known about more widely than at any time in the past. Recent film versions have brought it into popular culture, its association with the magic name of Tolkien has given it visibility, and the work of translators and adaptors in recent decades has introduced it to new audiences. The version of Seamus Heaney has been especially popular but a wide range of other verse translations, some good, some not so good, have also found ready markets. The readiest market has been among students studying Beowulf in translation at university, but Heaney's version didn't get onto best-seller lists in the English-speaking world by being bought only by students. Other versions too have aimed to appeal well beyond the campus.

This chapter surveys briefly the Modern English verse translations of Beowulf printed on both sides of the Atlantic in the last half-century or so, other than those treated separately in other chapters, taking account of their historical circumstances and attending to their aims, their approaches to translating the Old English poem, and their poetic qualities.