Beowulf by Unknown
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to the student, particularly in the notes and commentary. Students of the
poem, which has been subjected to much searching criticism during the last decade, will also derive especial help from the contributions of Sievers and Kluge on difficult questions appertaining to it. Wülker's new edition (in the Grein _Bibliothek_) is of the highest value, however one may dissent from particular textual views laid down in the 'Berichtigter Text.' Paul and Braune's Beiträge contain a varied miscellany of hints, corrections, and suggestions principally embodying the views of Kluge, Cosijn, Sievers, and Bugge, some of the more important of which are found in the appendices to the present and the preceding edition. Holder and Zupitza, Sarrazin and Hermann Möller (Kiel, 1883), Heinzel (Anzeiger f.d. Alterthum, X.), Gering (Zacher's Zeitschrift, XII.), Brenner (Eng. Studien, IX.), and the contributors to Anglia, have assisted materially in the textual and metrical interpretation of the poem. The subject of Anglo-Saxon quantity has been discussed in several able essays by Sievers, Sweet, Ten Brink (Anzeiger, f.d. Alterthum, V.), Kluge (Beiträge, XI.), and others; but so much is uncertain in this field that the editors have left undisturbed the marking of vowels found in the text of their original edition, while indicating in the appendices the now accepted views of scholars on the quantity of the personal pronouns (mê, wê, þû, þê, gê, hê); the adverb nû, etc. Perhaps it would be best to banish absolutely all attempts at marking quantities except in cases where the Ms. has them marked. An approximately complete Bibliography of Beówulf literature will be found in Wülker's _Grundriss_ and in Garnett's translation of the poem. JAMES A. HARRISON, |
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