Book Description:
BEOWULF AN ANGLO SAXON POEM WITH TEXT AND GLOSXARY 1883 NOTE , The present work, carefully edited from Hejmes fourth edition, Paderborn, 1579, is designed priinarily for college classes i11 Anglo Saxon, rather than for independent investigators or for seekers after a restored or ideal text. The need of an Am ricau edition of LLBe6wulf h as long been felt, as, hitherto, students have had either to send to Germany for a text, or secure, with great trouble, one of the scarce and expensive English editions. Heynes first edition came out in 1863, and was followed in 1867 . and 1873 by B second and a third edition, all three having essentially the saine text. So many important coiltributioris to the Beowulf literature were, however, made between 1873 and 1879 that Heyne fouild it necessary to put forth a new edition 1879. In this new, last edition, the text was subjected to a careful revision, and was fortified by the views, contributions, and criticisms of other zealous scholars. In it the collation of the unique eciwulf Ms. Vitellins a. 15 Cottonian Mss. of the British I inseuin, as made by E. Iiolbing ill Herrigs Archiu Bd. 56 1876, was followed wherever the present coildition of the . Ms. hacl to be disc lssed and the researches of Bugge, Rieger, and others, on single passages, were made use of. The discussion of the metrical structure of the poem, as occurring in the secoild and third editions, Was omitted i11 the fourth, owiilg to the many controversies in which the subject is still involved. The present editor has thoight it best to do the same, though, happily, the subject of Old English ilIetrik is undergoing a steady illumination through the labors of Schipper illid others. iv . N OTE I. Some errors and misplaced accents in Heynes text have been corrected in the present edition, in which, as in the genera1 revision of the text, the editor has been most kindly aided. by Prof. J. M. Garnett, late Principal of St. Johns College, Maryland. In the preparation of the present school edition it has been thought best to omit Heynes notes, as they concern themselves priilcipally with conjectural enlendations, substitutions of one reading for another, and disc ssionofs the condition of the Ms. Until Wiilckers text and the photographic fac simile of the original Ms. are iu the hands of all scholars, it will be better not to introduce such matters in the school room, where they would puzzle without instructing. . . For collveilience of reference, the editor has added a head line to each fit of the poem, with a view to facilitate a knowledge of its episodes. WASHINGT AN O D N L EE UNIVERSITY, LEXINGTON V , A ., June, 1882. NOTE 11. HE editors now have the pleasure of presenting to the public a T complete text and a tolerably complet e glossary of uBedwulf. The edition is the first published in America, and the first of its special kind presented to the English public, and it is the init, ial volume of a Library of Anglo Saxon Poetry, to be edited under the same auspices and with the cooperation of di t inguishesdch olars in this countiy. Among these scholars may be rneutioi ed Professors F. A. March of Lafayette College, T. R. Price of Coluinbia College, and W. M. Baskervill of Vailderbilt University...
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