Freshly Printed - allow 7 days lead
Couldn't load pickup availability
The Editing of Old English
Fred C. Robinson (Author)
9781557864383, Wiley
Hardback, published 27 October 1994
228 pages
24.5 x 16.6 x 1.8 cm, 0.454 kg
There has in recent years been a lively debate among ANglo-Saxonists about the principles on which Old English verse should be edited. The present collection of essays, by the foremost living critic of Old English poetry, will move this debate on to a new plane. Robinson approaches editorial problems from a variety of perspectives: several essays show how insufficient attention to the manuscript context of a poem has led earlier scholars into error; on other occasions, scholars are shown to have resorted too quickly to emendation when a fresh combination of philological skill and intelligence can make a transmitted reading yield good sense; on yet other occasions, Robinson solves intractable textual problems by clean and elegant emendation. THe message of the book is one which no student of Old English literature can ignore: namely that the interpretation of Old English poems requires thorough familiarity with the manuscript context in which the poem is preserved, together with deep philological learning and penetrating common sense. No student of Old English poetry has these qualities in greater abundance than Fred C Robinson.
Foreword vii Acknowledgments ix Abbreviations x Part I Text and Manuscript 1 I Old English Literature in Its Most Immediate Context 3 2 Consider the Source: Medieval Texts and Medieval Manuscripts 25 3 Print Culture and the Birth of the Text: A Review Essay 36 Part II Textual Criticism 45 4 Beomulf 47 a Two Non-Cruces in Beowulf 47 b Beowulf's Retreat from Frisia: Some Textual Problems in Lines 2361-2362 56 c Beowulf, Lines 1917-1919 69 d Is Wealhdeow a Prince's Daughter? 71 e The American Element in Beowulf 74 f Why is Grendel's Not Greeting the Gifstol a Wræc Micel? 83 g Textual Notes on Beowulf 89 5 On Several Poems 96 a Notes on the Old English Exodus 06 b The Royal Epithet Engle Leo in the Old English Durham Poem 111 c Notes and Emendations to Old English Poetic Texts 116 d The Old English Genesis, Lines 1136-1137 122 e Eve's "Weaker" Mind in Genesis B, Line 590 124 Part III Linguistic Studies of Old English 129 6 Metathesis in the Dictionaries: A Problem for Lexicographers 131 7 Old English Lexicographical Notes 149 8 Old English Awindan. Of. and Sinhere 155 9 Latin for Old English in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 160 Part IV Three Editions of Old English Texts 165 10 "Bede's" Envoi to the Old English History: An Experiment in Editing 167 II "The Rewards of Piety": "Two" Old English Poems in Their Manuscript Context 180 12 The Devil's Account of the Next World: An Anecdote from Old English Homiletic Literature 196 Index 207
Subject Areas: Literature: history & criticism [DS]
