The Interpretation of Old English Poems (1972) is a challenging approach in the critical appreciation of Old English poems. Professor Greenfield argues in particular against two inhibiting orientations in criticism of Anglo-Saxon poetry: an insensitive and too-narrowly defined historicism, and a blinkered philological tradition. He suggests ways in which the practical criticism of Old English poetry and poems can be conducted, and provides the means for a student to form his own critical approach. The book is particularly challenging in that it brings literary criticism into a field which has hitherto belonged largely to historians and linguists.

Anglo-Saxon prose and poetry is, without question, the major literary achievement of the early Middle Ages (c. 700-1100). In no other vernacular language does such a vast store of verbal treasures exist for so extended a period of time. For twenty years the definitive guide to that literature has been Stanley B. Greenfield's 1965 Critical History of Old English Literature. Now this classic has been extensively revised and updated to make it more valuable than ever to both the student and scholar.

Stanley B. Greenfield, one of the world's foremost Anglo-Saxon scholars, writes of why, after more than thirty years of study, he undertook the Herculean task of rendering "Beowulf "into con-temporary verse: "I wanted my translation to be not only faith-ful to the original but, as the late John Lennon would have put it, 'A Poem in Its Own Write.' I wanted it to 'flow, ' to be easy to read, with the narrative movement of a modern prose story; yet to suggest the rhythmic cadences of the Old English poem. I wanted it both modern and Old English in its reflexes and sen-sibilities, delighting both the general reader and the Anglo-Saxon specialist. . . . I wanted it to reproduce the intoxication of aural contours which... might have pleased and amused war-riors over their cups in the Anglo-Saxon mead-hall, or those monks in Anglo-Saxon monasteries who paid more attention to song and to stories of Ingeld than to the "lector "and the gospels."
Greenfield has succeeded to a remarkable degree in reaching his goals. An early reviewer of the manuscript, Daniel G. Calder of UCLA, wrote: "I find it the best translation of "Beowulf."
One of the great problems with other translations is that they make the reading of "Beowulf "difficult. Greenfield's translation speeds along with considerable ease. . . Scholars will find the translation fascinating as an exercise in the successful recreat-ing of various aspects of Old English poeticstyle."