Tenth English Translation. Prose.
Translator, and Circumstances of Publication.
Hitherto Dr. Hall had been chiefly known to the learned world for his excellent Anglo-Saxon Dictionary for Students.
Up to this time no prose translation had appeared in England since 1876, save Earle’s[2], which for the elementary student was practically useless. Moreover, this translation was the first to embody the results of various studies on the poem during the past decade.
Contents.
Unlike the preceding works on Beowulf, it may be said that the introductory and illustrative matter in this book is of quite as much importance as the translation. The author says of his book:—
‘The following pages comprise a short statement of what is actually known with respect to the poem of Beowulf, another statement of what seems to me most likely to be true amongst the almost innumerable matters of conjecture concerning it, and a few words of literary appreciation.’ —Introduction, p. ix.
Statements similar to these have been put forth by other translators of the poem, but the material of their volume has not always borne them out. The studies of the poem in the Introduction are sufficient for a school edition of Beowulf—a similar body of information is not found in any of the existing editions—while annotations of some importance to the elementary student are found in the notes and running comment. The book contains, beside the translation, a discussion of the form, language, geographical allusions, date, and composition of the poem, as well as a useful, though inaccurate, bibliography[3].
Text Used.
The translation is founded on the text of A. J. Wyatt, Cambridge, 1894. Dr. Hall does not always follow the interpretations given in Wyatt’s glossary, nor is the punctuation of the translation conformed to that of the Old English text.