PREFACE.
A lengthy apology for preparing an English edition of the “Beowulf” is perhaps hardly necessary. The earlier English editions are long since out of print, and the poem has therefore been almost unobtainable, except in the German editions of Heyne and Holder.[1] Excellent as these may be in several ways, they are ill adapted for the average English student, besides having one or more very marked defects. Holder’s foot-notes are as unreliable as his text is reliable. Heyne’s glossary, like that of most German editions, stands self-condemned, in that he frequently forgets the absurd, artificial order of letters on which it is based. Furthermore, his glossary amounts to a translation; and this of itself tends to rob the work of much of its educative value for the serious student.
It has been felt therefore that an English edition was needed—for after all the “Beowulf” is essentially an English poem—which should give the readings of the MS. in foot-notes wherever they were departed from in the
- ↑ There is a translation of Heyne’s edition by two American professors; but they have taken the trouble to render their text perfectly worthless by appropriating all Heyne’s emendations and omitting his notes which give the readings of the MS.
