[ GREIN’S TRANSLATIONS]
Dichtungen der Angelsachsen, stabreimend übersetzt von C. W. M. Grein. Erster Band. Göttingen: Georg H. Wigand, 1857. 8o, Beowulf, pp. 223–308. Zweite (Titel-) Auflage, 1863.
Beowulf. Stabreimend übersetzt von Professor Dr. C. W. M. Grein. Zweite Auflage. Kassel: Georg H. Wigand, 1883. 8o, pp. 90.
Second German Translation. Imitative Measures.
Grein’s Preparation for Scholarly Work.
Christian Wilhelm Michael Grein[1] (1825–77) was eminently well fitted for the editing and translating of Old English poetry. He possessed a natural aptitude for the study of Germanic Philology, and had the advantage of studying with an excellent professor, Franz Eduard Christoph Dietrich (1810–83), in the University at Marburg. As early as 1854 he began his labors as a translator of Old English poetry with a version of the Phoenix, ‘Der Vogel Phoenix: ein angelsächsisches Gedicht, stabreimend übersetzt,’ Rinteln, 1854. In the same year he printed a translation of the Heliand.
In 1855 he assumed the position of Praktikant at the Kassel Landesbibliothek. Here he was able to devote a large part of his attention to the study of Old English, acquiring a familiarity with the poetry of that tongue which it has seldom been the fortune of a scholar to surpass. He formed the design of editing and translating the entire body of Old English poetry and appending to it a complete glossary which should not only give the meanings of the words, but instance every occurrence of the word. This design he carried out between the years 1857 and 1864.
[ Grein’s Texts.]
The text of Beowulf is found in Grein’s Bibliothek der angelsächsichen Poesie, Erster Band, Göttingen, 1857, where it occupies pp. 255–341. A second edition, several times re-edited, is Beovulf, nebst den Fragmenten Finnsburg und Waldere, Kassel und Göttingen, 1867.
Grein never saw the MS. of the poem[2]. He based his text on a collation of all the preceding editions. This was unfortunate, because, had Grein seen the MS., he would doubtless have hastened to make a correct transcription of it. As it was, his edition necessarily shares some of the faults of its predecessors, since the text had never yet been accurately transcribed. A simple illustration of this defect may be seen by examining line 2218 of the text, where Grein reads,