<<
I'll go on from this, if you consider the enormous investment in time
and labour that pre-printing manuscripts involved can one really
consider anything as representing a kind of unpremeditated untextual
poetry?
>>
I don't think anyone is suggesting that the Beowulf MS represents
"unpremeditated [unmediated?] untextual poetry", dave, simply that it has
its origins in an earlier oral text.
And, if we accept the evidence of the "g" alliteration, composed well before
the 1010 date of the Beowulf MS itself, as I seem to remember you arguing
for a consciously archaising 11th C scribe.
He'd have had to be *bloody clever to retro-engineer the "g" alliteration
for the purposes of a new composition. <g>
Robin
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