I don't think that I've read this particular translation (although I have read three others). I'd personally recommend the Seamus Heaney translation highly.
And, actually, it was transcribed in roughly 1000 AD, not the 8th century.
Other than that, I see nothing wrong with it. Poetic versions admittedly take A LOT longer to read than prose version, but when that's what it was originally written in, I greatly prefer them. You can just tell styalistically that that's what they were made for, even when translated from another language, especially when translated properly. That's just my opinion, though.
I really love Beowulf (thus the three different translations I've read). I liked the symmetry that the story had (starting and ending with a funeral), and the gradual plot-progression (Grendel, Grendel's mother and then the dragon). My first finished novel, actually, was strongly inspired by it. _________________ "It ain't all buttons and charts little Albatross. You know what the first rule of flyin' is?... Love. You can know all the math in the 'Verse, but take a boat in the air you don't love, she ain't keepin' up just as sure as the turning of worlds. Love keeps her up when she ought to fall down, tells ya she's hurtin' 'fore she keens, makes her home." Captain Malcom Reynalds, "Serenity"
The date quoted in the review is "8th century" because the poem is theorized to have originated in the 8th century, even if the earliest extant copy is from centuries later.
Here's a link to the sourcebook my thesis advisor uses in his classes:
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