Editing Old English literature (section)

==== Poetry ====
Old English literature has had some influence on modern literature, and notable poets have translated and incorporated Old English poetry.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jones |first=Chris |title=Fossil poetry: Anglo-Saxon and linguistic nativism in nineteenth-century poetry |date=2018 |publisher=Oxford university press |isbn=978-0-19-882452-7 |location=Oxford (GB)}}</ref> Well-known early translations include [[Alfred, Lord Tennyson]]'s translation of ''The Battle of Brunanburh'', [[William Morris]]'s translation of ''Beowulf'', and [[Ezra Pound]]'s translation of ''The Seafarer''. The influence of the poetry can be seen in modern poets Ezra Pound and [[W. H. Auden]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jones |first=Chris |title=Strange likeness: the use of Old English in twentieth-century poetry |date=2006 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-170788-9 |location=Oxford}}</ref>

More recently other notable poets such as [[Paul Muldoon]], [[Edwin Morgan (poet)|Edwin Morgan]], [[Seamus Heaney]], [[Denise Levertov]] and [[U. A. Fanthorpe]] have all shown an interest in Old English poetry. In 1987 Denise Levertov published "Cædmon", an original composition based on Bede's account for the poet [[Cædmon]] of [[Cædmon's Hymn]] in the collection ''Breathing the Water''. This was followed by Seamus Heaney's version of the poem "Whitby-sur-Moyola" in his ''The Spirit Level'' (1996), Paul Muldoon's "Caedmona's Hymn" in his ''Moy Sand and Gravel'' (2002) and U. A. Fanthorpe's "Caedmon's Song" in her ''Queuing for the Sun'' (2003).

In 2000, Seamus Heaney published his translation of ''Beowulf''. Heaney uses Irish diction across ''Beowulf'' to bring what he calls a "special body and force" to the poem, putting forward his own Ulster heritage, "in order to render [the poem] ever more 'willable forward/again and again and again.'"<ref>{{cite book |last1=Heaney |first1=Seamus |editor1-last=Donohughe |editor1-first=Daniel |title=Beowulf: a Verse Translation |date=2002 |publisher=W.W. Norton |location=New York |page=xxxviii}}</ref>