| Description |
1 online resource. |
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text file |
| Series |
Myth and poetics
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Myth and poetics.
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| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Contents |
THE TRANSMISSION OF BEOWULF; CONTENTS; List of Illustrations; Series Foreword by Gregory Nagy; Preface; Acknowledgments; List of Abbreviations; 1. Introduction; 1. The Duration of Transmission; 2. The Detection of Scribal Error; 3. Meter and Alliteration; 4. Probabilistic Reasoning; 5. General Prefatory Remarks; 2. Language History; 1. Diachronic Variation; 2. Dialectal Variation; 3. Syntactic Misconstruction; 4. Trivialization; 5. Interpolation; 3. Cultural Change; 1. Obliteration of Personal Names; 2. Obliteration of Ethnic Names; 3. Erroneous Spacing; 4. Scribal Self-Correction. |
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5. Chronological Significance4. Scribal Behavior; 1. The Lexemic Theory; 2. Competing Theories; 3. Variation in Parallel Texts; 4. The Four Poetic Codices; 5. Theory and Evidence; 5. Conclusion; 1. The Unity of Beowulf; 2. Linguistic Regularities; 3. Methodological Considerations; 4. Textual Criticism; 5. Manuscript Context; Appendix: J.R.R. Tolkien's Beowulf Textual Criticism; Glossary of Terms; Bibliography; Index of Verses; Index of Subjects. |
| Summary |
Beowulf, like The Iliad and The Odyssey, is a foundational work of Western literature that originated in mysterious circumstances. In The Transmission of "Beowulf," Leonard Neidorf addresses philological questions that are fundamental to the study of the poem. Is Beowulf the product of unitary or composite authorship? How substantially did scribes alter the text during its transmission, and how much time elapsed between composition and preservation?Neidorf answers these questions by distinguishing linguistic and metrical regularities, which originate with the Beowulf poet, from patterns of textual corruption, which descend from copyists involved in the poem's transmission. He argues, on the basis of archaic features that pervade Beowulf and set it apart from other Old English poems, that the text preserved in the sole extant manuscript (ca. 1000) is essentially the work of one poet who composed it circa 700. Of course, during the poem’s written transmission, several hundred scribal errors crept into its text. These errors are interpreted in the central chapters of the book as valuable evidence for language history, cultural change, and scribal practice. Neidorf’s analysis reveals that the scribes earnestly attempted to standardize and modernize the text’s orthography, but their unfamiliarity with obsolete words and ancient heroes resulted in frequent errors. The Beowulf manuscript thus emerges from his study as an indispensible witness to processes of linguistic and cultural change that took place in England between the eighth and eleventh centuries. An appendix addresses J. R. R. Tolkien’s Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, which was published in 2014. Neidorf assesses Tolkien’s general views on the transmission of Beowulf and evaluates his position on various textual issues. |
| Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
| Subject |
Beowulf -- Criticism, Textual.
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Beowulf. |
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Criticism, Textual. |
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Beowulf. |
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Epic poetry, English (Old) -- Criticism, Textual.
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Epic poetry, English (Old) |
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Transmission of texts -- England -- History -- To 1500.
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Transmission of texts. |
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England. |
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History. |
| Chronological Term |
To 1500 |
| Subject |
Language and culture -- England -- History -- To 1500.
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Language and culture. |
| Genre/Form |
Electronic books.
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Criticism, interpretation, etc.
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History.
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| Other Form: |
Print version: Neidorf, Leonard. Transmission of Beowulf. Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2017 9781501705113 (DLC) 2016035593 |
| ISBN |
9781501708275 (epub/mobi) |
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1501708279 |
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9781501708282 (pdf) |
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1501708287 |
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9781501705113 |
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1501705113 |
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