My colleague David Eugene Clark and I are currently translating the Heliand and the Old Saxon Genesis, poems that constitute the whole of the Old Saxon literary corpus. Since G. Ronald Murphy’s translation of the Heliand went out of print in 2020, there has not been an accessible classroom translation of the text, and our project aims to remedy this issue. We are currently under advance agreement with Medieval Institute Publications, and we hope to complete the translation in 2026, with a targeted publication date for 2027.

Project Description

This Modern English verse translation of the Old Saxon Hêliand, and its prefaces, Vatican Genesis and Genesis B, including a contextualizing introduction and critical notes, makes accessible to modern English readers more than 6,000 lines of alliterative verse that reimagines biblical narratives through Germanic contexts. It is the first translation to bring together all Old Saxon texts providing a uniquely valuable resource to scholars teaching or researching Old English literature, German literature, comparative literature, or biblical studies, and other humanities disciplines.

Translators

David Eugene Clark (Ph.D. Baylor University 2016) is an Associate Professor of English at Suffolk County Community College and Co-President of Old Saxon at Kalamazoo. He has numerous publications in medieval literature and textual studies, including “The Wisdom of Elizabeth and Mary in the Hêliand and Diatessaron” in Old English and Continental Germanic Literature in Comparative Perspectives. He also regularly presents on the Hêliand at the International Congress on Medieval Studies and the Southeastern Medieval Association’s conference. He has participated in sessions on literary and cultural concerns of the Hêliand, teaching, and translation.

Perry Neil Harrison (PhD, Baylor University, 2018) is an Assistant Professor of English at Fort Hays State University and Co-President of Old Saxon at Kalamazoo. His significant scholarly contributions to the field of Old Saxon and Hêliand studies prepare him to produce the introduction and annotations for this edition. Harrison’s research on the Hêliand and its cultural context has appeared in Modern Philology and Neophilologus, both highly competitive journals in the Old Germanic field. Additionally, Perry has regularly presented research on the Hêliand at the International Congress on Medieval Studies and the Southeastern Medieval Association’s conferences. Harrison’s research on the Hêliand is not limited to the scholarship of discovery; he has also published and presented on his approaches to bringing the Hêliand into the classroom.