Henry Adams Bellows
American editor, broadcaster and translator of the Poetic Edda
- Born
- 1885
- Died
- 1939
- Known for
- The Poetic Edda (1923), American-Scandinavian Foundation
- Education
- PhD, Harvard (1910), on Old Norse literature
- Career
- Editor, radio station manager, Federal Radio Commission member (1927), CBS vice president
American journalist and radio executive whose 1923 translation of the Poetic Edda is the standard public-domain English version.
What is Henry Adams Bellows known for?
Henry Adams Bellows was an American writer and businessman. He earned a PhD in comparative literature at Harvard in 1910 with a dissertation on prose and verse in Old Norse literature, then worked as an editor of The Bellman, a music critic, and manager of the Minneapolis radio station WCCO. He was an early member of the Federal Radio Commission in 1927, a vice president of CBS, and later head of public relations at General Mills.
Alongside this career he translated the Poetic Edda for the American-Scandinavian Foundation (1923). The Poetic Edda is a collection of Old Norse poems about gods and heroes preserved mainly in the Codex Regius, an Icelandic manuscript of the 13th century. It includes the Voluspa, a seeress's account of the creation and destruction of the world.
His translation keeps the alliterative rhythm of the original and is now public domain, which is why it is the version most often quoted online.
The site quotes Bellows's 1923 Voluspa for the yawning gap before creation and the sun turning black at the end of the world.
Sources
- Internet Sacred Text Archive, 'The Poetic Edda', tr. Henry Adams BellowsPrimary text
- Wikipedia, 'Henry Adams Bellows (businessman)'Reference
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