Instruct: Classify a review into positive or negative sentiment.
Query: Not even bad enough to be funny

Rebsamen fails J.R.R. Tolkien's basic test of "offering an harmonious choice of modern English words" ("On Translating Beowulf). It is not as dreadful as some other translations of Beowulf, still it is still a dismal read. When reading Rebsamen, I was struck many times by the lack of correspondence to the original poem. This ranges from strange language choice (Rebsamen made up the word "deemer," for the Old English word for judge) to complete deviance from content of the poem. On the first page of the translation, Rebsamen has Scyld "floating with gifts/a strange king-child." Bad poetry, worse translation. The line Rebsamen is translating means, "found destitute, he experienced consolation for that." Tolkien used J.J. Earle's 19th century translation as an example of a failed translation of Beowulf. I've read Earle; his translation is bad enough to be funny. Rebsamen doesn't even attain that.