I would not be eaten, nor beaten, no skewered and swimmer I,
no drowned dinner for a circle of cold companions,
gobbling my guts, glutted on my gold.

Beowulf giving ‘zero shits’ and the numerous Bro!’s won’t be for everyone, and that’s okay. Usually, a translation endeavors to be “timeless” so that no matter when it is consumed, it can be reasonably well understood. This approach narrows the translator's available word choice, eliminating popular vernacular, cadence, and jargon in favor of the antiquated versions of these things, as well as the original interpretations of the story itself. These translations end up becoming less evocative and, counter-intuitively, less accessible than they endeavor to be.
This translation discards these in-built assumptions regarding what is “desirable” of a translated text.

There is something of a renaissance happening in translations of classics. Feminist perspectives such as Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey and Madeline Miller’s historical fiction books Circe and The Song of Achilles have revealed blind spots in previous translations. Beowulf belongs with these, another example of why challenging the defaultism present in previous work in this field is a fantastic thing.

“She’d surrendered son and brother here,
her home-hall become a brutal battlefield.
Innocent of crime, yet cursed, captured,
speared, worse. Hoc’s daughter was savaged
by sorrow, grief-gutted. Who wouldn’t weep,
as dawn drove feud-daggers deeper, the sun scoring
her son’s wounds, day breaking upon her dearest dead?
They’d been her heart, her happiness, her hopes.
War had wrung them ragged, dragged them to death
across a court of sword-crossed kin.”

Beowulf sports some of the most evocative prose I’ve ever encountered. In any text. While it can be jarring reading lines like, “Meanwhile, Beowulf gave zero shits.” one cannot say it is not accessible. People of all ages will understand. Nothing is opaque. Everything flows extremely well and still designed to be spoken aloud. It just works.

This may not be the case as time goes on. Popular terms and jargon fade away. But, cleverly, I think time will only prove to enshrine this text because it is grounded in the present moment. It reflects now rather than the past. It is more graceful and elegant by rooting itself in the present.

I wouldn’t ordinarily consider a new translation to be a modern classic because, while they may be “better” translations that others, they do not usually deviate from the text enough to be considered truly new. Perhaps it is more clear or has better flow and is more enjoyable to read as a result, but this new translation of Beowulf goes out of its way to differentiate itself.

It is a different interpretation of the text from a sociological standpoint, with a feminist perspective. The translation endeavors to distinguish itself from everything previously done. Bold in ambition, goals, and direction, Beowulf is transformed by Maria Dahvana Headley from the oldest story to something innovative and unique; a candidate for being considered a modern classic.

“Then another dirge rose, woven uninvited
by a Geatish woman, louder than the rest.
She tore her hair and screamed her horror
at the hell that was to come: more of the same.
Reaping raping, feasts of blood, iron fortunes
marching across her country claiming her body.
The sky sipped the smoke and smiled.”