Michael Alexander also did a penguin called The Earliest English Poems it is 
v good. He lived at St Andrews and I met him there ten years ago, he is 
clever and also had very good Italian. Havent heard of him lately.
Sally Evans
http://www.poetryscotland.co.uk
http://groups.msn.com/desktopsallye
http://www.myspace.com/poetsallyevans
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Judy Prince" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2008 4:13 AM
Subject: Re: A fitt


> Robin, my thanks for the Michael Alexander _Beowulf_ URL.
> I've so far just read the introduction of some 11 pages and find it so
> telling, so clearly written, and so helpful for this discussion [as well 
> as
> "eternal" politics] that I'll now type in quoted parts that seem to answer
> questions I'll pose.  First, though, again, the URL for those who'll want 
> to
> read the intro for themselves, which includes many excellent examples I've
> omitted for brevity's sake:
> http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KFlpxcQftwoC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0#PPR5,M1
>
> And now parts of Michael Alexander's introduction in 'response' to my
> questions:
>
> 1)  Who would've been _Beowulf's_ original audience?
>
> The ruling Anglo-Saxon Kingdom's families in the 7th and 8th century. 
> _B's_
> about "their conquering forefathers and continental grandfathers."
>
> 2)  Who wrote it, when, and why?
>
> "_Beowulf's_ the earliest extant poem in a modern European language.  It 
> was
> composed in England four centuries before the Norman Conquest." ..... 
> "No
> one knows exactly when it was composed, or by whom, or why" ... It 
> reflects
> a feudal nation new to Christianity.
>
> 3)  What about its poetic composition and what about its history?
>
> "The poetic composition as well as the poem's history is a conglomerate" 
> ...
> The Anglican component "took place north of the Thames at a court with
> Scandinavian ancestral interests" ... "...(T)he Hengest of the poem may be
> the Hengest who came to Kent in 449; and the Offa of the poem was claimed 
> as
> an ancestor of Offa of Mercia in the 8th century."
>
> "The writer of the poem must be presumed to have been a cleric, for whom 
> the
> heathen [sic] ancestors of his king would have been like Old Testament 
> kings
> of Israel, such as Saul or David.  Some clerics had the same ancestors as
> their kings."
>
> "The knowing way much _B_ alludes to tales of Finn and of Ingeld makes it
> clear that their stories were in oral circulation before there was a 
> written
> _B_ , and much of the poem may have been available in oral verse tradition
> before a monk dipped his quill in ink.  In which case, the writer who gave
> the poem its final shape shares the credit of authorship with the 
> unlettered
> poets who went before him, unclerical poets like those celebrated in the
> poem."
>
> 4)  What's it about?
>
> "What _B_ relates of the Danes, Swedes and Geats [the dynastic history of
> Denmark, Geatland and Sweden over two or three generations], then, has a
> strong basis in the events of history shaped in legendary patterns."  ...
> "The poem itself deals with legend rather than history, however, and is
> called after a hero who is more mythical than historical.  In no other
> source do we find the name Beowulf (or Biowulf, as he is called by the
> second scribe of the manuscript)."
>
> "There are two narratives in the poem, the story of the northern dynasties
> and Beowulf's own story.  The dynastic history is also the far-back 
> family's
> history of those who were the patrons of poetry and of its audience.  Then
> there is the heroic story of Beowulf, an archetype not an ancestor."
>
> "The dynastic and the personal narratives compare the life of the heroic 
> age
> with the life of a hero:  what the experience of living in the heroic age
> had been like, and what the ideal hero could be like.  The Anglo-Saxons
> looked for ethical wisdom in their poems, and their poem is preoccupied 
> with
> the fate of heroes, of dynasties and of nations."
>
> "The portrait of the noble Beowulf is surrounded by portraits of less 
> ideal
> heroes and kings...."
>
> 5)  What 'messages' seem to be in the poem?
>
> "Heroic obligations were often in conflict in a warrior society of tribal
> kingdoms:  the law of  hospitality and the law of vengeance for a lord or 
> a
> kinsman; the duty to avenge a father and the duty to a wife."
>
> "An epic is also a tribal encyclopaedia, and _B_ is a lexicon of the
> warnings offered by history to heroes and rulers.  Many of the allusions 
> and
> episodes of the poem are lost at first on a modern reader, and some of 
> them
> will remain lost.  It is unlikely that a later Anglo-Saxon audience would
> have recognised every tragic irony with the clarity of a well-instructed
> audience of _Oedipus Rex_.  But they would have taken the general point of
> the constant comparisons and caught the tone of the allusions."
> ____________
>
> Best,
>
> Judy
>
> 2008/11/23 Robin Hamilton <[log in to unmask]>
>
>> <<
>> keep meaning to get a version that has the original alongside the
>> transcription/interpretation.
>>
>>>
>>>>
>> Tina,
>>
>> You might want to consider:
>>
>>       Beowulf: A Glossed Text
>>       By Michael Alexander
>>       Published by Penguin Classics, 1995
>>       ISBN 0140433775, 9780140433777
>>       237 pages
>>
>> It's not quite a parallel text, but one *heavily glossed on the right 
>> hand
>> facing page.
>>
>> You can get an idea of what it's like from google books, which allows you
>> to read as far as about line 20.
>>
>>
>> http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KFlpxcQftwoC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0
>>
>> There are, I think, several versions of the original text on the Web as
>> well as various out-of-copyright translations.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Robin
>>