Old English Prose and Verse

An Annotated Selection with Introductions and Notes by

Roger Fowler

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000573992
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Originally published in 1966, this book provides students of the earliest stage of our literature with a selection of texts for a complete introductory course. All the principal poems and prose works in this literature are represented, including more generous extracts from Beowulf than are common in anthologies of this type. By omitting texts of primarily philological and historical interest it has been possible to include enough literary texts to satisfy all but the advanced student, who will follow this volume with the specialised editions available. A departure from the traditional design of Old English anthologies is the provision of full critical and annotative apparatus. In the past it has been necessary for students to go beyond their Readers, to specialised editions or to learned articles, in order to discover even the most basic information about the extracts or their content. Here each text is accompanied by an introduction which gives brief details of (where known) date, authorship, manuscript situation, character and critical interest. Line-by-line explanatory notes are also provided, and a bibliography of books and articles for further study. The glossary aims to be more explicit about form and meaning, and easier to use than those of earlier selections.

GLOSSARY

in this glossary the aim has been comprehensiveness; but this has had to be managed within the bounds of economy and in the interests of simplicity. All spellings of all words have been listed with, where necessary, cross- referenees, exeept where a particular spelling falls within ten places of the main entry of the word of which it is a variant. So a spelling with -ie- will be listed, and the reader directed to the main -y- spelling, or vice versa. What spelling of a. word is chosen for its chief entry is determined by fre- quency of occurrence, not dialect normalisation; this means that the ortho- graphy of the primary entries is inconsistent, but that the glossary is easier to use given the variety of spelling conventions found in these excerpts.

Words beginning with æ are listed separately after words beginning with a; medial -æ- follows -a-, not -ad-; þ and ð occur (without distinction) after t; the affix ge is ignored in the sequence, geferan coming after feran, ealdgestreon between ealdormonn and ealdsweord. A bracketed ge- means that the prefix is only sometimes present in the various forms of the word.

Usually, three examples of each word are cited. The convention of numerical reference is to extract and line number; thus i/i means ‘extract i, line i’. Where the nominative singular of nouns, or the masculine nominative singular of pronouns and adjectives, or the infinitive of verbs, is found in the book, it is listed first in the glossary; after this (and in other cases) references are given in numerical sequence. Words found in more than one spelling are given two references each. Full details of the forms of strong verbs and of pronouns are provided (with cross-references) in the belief that discovering how to look these up causes the beginner much difficulty, and that what he leams of these essential paradigms from his grammar may well be reinforced by the use of this glossary.

A good range of meanings is given for each word, bearing in mind actual (or at least apparent) meanings in the texts. Where distinctly separate semantic areas appear to emerge, these are listed, with groups of references. Specialised or idiosyncratic meanings are noted individually.

The following abbreviations are used:

acc.

accusatiove

adj.

adjective

adv.

adverb

comp.

comparative

conj.

conjunction

dat.

dative

def. art.

definite article

dem.

demonstrative

excl.

exclamation

f.

feminine

gen.

genitive

imp.

imperative

impers,

impersonal

indef.

indefinite

inf.

infinitive

infl.

inflected

instr.

instrumental

inter.

interrogative

intr.

intransitive

irr.

irregular verb

lit.

literally

m.

masculine

n.

neuter

neg.

negative

nom.

nominative

num.

numeral

p.

participle

pl.

plural

poss.

possessive

prep.

preposition

pres,

present

pret,

preterite

pron.

pronoun

refl.

reflexive

sg.

singular

subj.

subjuncti...