Berg och ringar. Hela sitt vad med dig
Fullgjorde noga Beanstans son.’
[ EARLE’S TRANSLATION]
The Deeds of Beowulf, an English Epic of the Eighth Century, done into Modern Prose, with an Introduction and Notes by John Earle, M.A., rector of Swanswick, Rawlinsonian Professor of Anglo-Saxon in the University of Oxford. At the Clarendon Press, 1892 (February). 8o, pp. c, 203.
Seventh English Translation. Prose.
Circumstances of Publication.
Sixteen years had elapsed since the publication of a scholarly translation in England—for Lumsden’s[1] can hardly be said to count as such. In the meantime Heyne’s text[2] had passed into a fifth edition (1888); Wülker’s revision of Grein’s Bibliothek had appeared with a new text of Beowulf (1881); Zupitza’s Autotypes of the MS. had appeared 1882, making it possible to ascertain exactly what was in the original text of the poem; the studies of Sievers[3], Cosijn[4], Kluge[5], and Bugge[6] had been published, containing masterly discussions of text revision. Some of these materials had been used by Garnett in his translation, but the majority of them were of later date.
Aim of the Translation.
Nothing is said in the introduction respecting the aim of the translation; but it is evident from the Notes that the purpose was twofold—to present the latest interpretation of the text, and to afford a literary version of the poem.