Transmission of "Beowulf"

Leonard Neidorf

Description

Beowulf, like The Iliad and The Odyssey, is a foundational work of Western literature that originated in mysterious circumstances. In The Transmission of Beowulf, Leonard Neidorf addresses philological questions that are fundamental to the study of the poem. Is Beowulf the product of unitary or composite authorship? How substantially did scribes alter the text during its transmission, and how much time elapsed between composition and preservation? Neidorf answers these questions by distinguishing linguistic and metrical regularities, which originate with the Beowulf poet, from patterns of textual corruption, which descend from copyists involved in the poem's transmission. He argues, on the basis of archaic features that pervade Beowulf and set it apart from other Old English poems, that the text preserved in the sole extant manuscript (ca. 1000) is essentially the work of one poet who composed it circa 700. Of course, during the poem's written transmission, several hundred scribal errors crept into its text. These errors are interpreted in the central chapters of the book as valuable evidence for language history, cultural change, and scribal practice. Neidorf's analysis reveals that the scribes earnestly attempted to standardize and modernize the text's orthography, but their unfamiliarity with obsolete words and ancient heroes resulted in frequent errors. The Beowulf manuscript thus emerges from his study as an indispensible witness to processes of linguistic and cultural change that took place in England between the eighth and eleventh centuries. An appendix addresses J. R. R. Tolkien's Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, which was published in 2014. Neidorf assesses Tolkien's general views on the transmission of Beowulf and evaluates his position on various textual issues.

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 16 mai 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501708282
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE TRANSMISSION OFBEOWULF

A VOLUME IN THE SERIES MYTH AND POETICS II GREGORY NAGY, EDITOR LEONARD MUELLNER, ASSOCIATE EDITOR

For a full list of titles in this series, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

A complete list of titles published in the original Myth and Poetics series is available at the back of this book.

THE TRANSMISSION OF BEOWULF

Language, Culture, and Scribal Behavior

LEONARD NEIDORF

Cornell University Press Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2017 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2017 by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Neidorf, Leonard, author. Title: The transmission of Beowulf : language, culture, and scribal behavior / Leonard Neidorf. Description: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2017. | Series: Myth and poetics II | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016035593 (print) | LCCN 2016037074 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501705113 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781501708275 (epub/mobi) | ISBN 9781501708282 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Beowulf--Criticism, Textual. | Epic poetry, English (Old)-- Criticism, Textual. | Transmission of texts--England--History--To 1500. | Language and culture--England--History--To 1500. Classification: LCC PR1586 .N45 2017 (print) | LCC PR1586 (ebook) | DDC 829/.3--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016035593

Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such mate- rials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid- free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

Cover: © The British Library Board, Cotton Vitellius A.XV, f. 172.

TO

R. D. FULK

JOSEPH HARRIS

RAFAEL J. PASCUAL

Beowulfis a work, as we have it, of a single hand and mind—comparable to a play (sayKing Lear) by Shakespeare: thus it may have varied sources; minor discrepancies due to imperfections in the handling and blending of these; and may have suffered some “corruption” (e.g. occasional deliberate tinkering or editing, and many minor casual errors) in the course of tradition between author and our copy. But it makes a unified artistic impression: the impress of a single imagination, and the ring of a single poetic style. The minor “discrepancies” detract little from this, as a rule.

J. R. R. Tolkien,Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary

There is one kind of corruption which our text has escaped, viz. that which is imported by a too clever scribe who thinks he knows what his author ought to have written and “mends his book” accordingly. Our two scribes were immune from this weakness; they were conscientious, if unintelligent, copyists who set down what they saw or thought they saw in their book (perhaps itself a copy) without worrying about sense or metre. There is one great advantage in this faithful form of transcription; for, by studying the different kinds of involuntary error to which it is subject, we can usually correct with confidence either nonsense or wrong sense…

S. O. Andrew,Postscript on Beowulf

Die Überlieferung ist also gerade für die Dichtungen der klassischen Zeit, des 7. und 8. Jahrhunderts, durchschnittlich um 200 bis 250 Jahre jünger als die Texte selbst und gibt alle anglischen Gedichte in fremder Dialektform wieder. Es ist selbstverständlich, daß bei einer solchen Art der Überlieferung auch das Metrum vielfach gestört worden ist, durch Einsetzung jüngerer und dialektisch abweichender Sprachformen, von eigentlichen Textverderbnissen ganz abgesehen. Doch lassen sich die meisten Fehler dieser Art mit ziemlicher Sicherheit erkennen und beseitigen.

Eduard Sievers,Altgermanische Metrik

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations Series Foreword by Gregory Nagy Preface Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations

1. Introduction 1. The Duration of Transmission 2. The Detection of Scribal Error 3. Meter and Alliteration 4. Probabilistic Reasoning 5. General Prefatory Remarks

2. Language History 1. Diachronic Variation 2. Dialectal Variation 3. Syntactic Misconstruction 4. Trivialization 5. Interpolation

3. Cultural Change 1. Obliteration of Personal Names 2. Obliteration of Ethnic Names 3. Erroneous Spacing 4. Scribal Self-Correction 5. Chronological Significance

4. Scribal Behavior 1. The Lexemic Theory 2. Competing Theories 3. Variation in Parallel Texts 4. The Four Poetic Codices 5. Theory and Evidence

ix xi xiii xvii xix

1 10 18 22 25

31 46 57 62 68

73 80 87 92 96

103 109 114 126 130

viii Contents

5. Conclusion 1. The Unity ofBeowulf 2. Linguistic Regularities 3. Methodological Considerations 4. Textual Criticism 5. Manuscript Context

Appendix: J. R. R. Tolkien’sBeowulf Textual Criticism

Glossary of Terms Bibliography Index of Verses Index of Subjects

133 137 149 155 160

163

175 179 195 199

ILLUSTRATIONS

All illustrations from London, British Library, Cotton MS Vitellius A.xv.

Figure 1. Scribal addition ofetodōgor, line 1797b (fol. 172r) ..................35

Figure 2. Scribal insertion ofgintoecþeow.............44, line 263b (fol. 137v)

Figure 3. Scribal addition ofƿtowealhþeo, line 612b (fol. 146r) ..............45

Figure 4. Scribal addition ofƿtoongenðio.............45, line 2961a (fol. 197v)

Figure 5. Scribal insertion ofiintoǣngum..............54, line 793b (fol. 150r)

Figure 6. Anomalous spacing inmere wio ingasmilts, line 2921b (fol. 197r) . 88

Figure 7. Scribal alteration ofcamesintocāines, line 107a (fol. 134r) .......93

Figure 8. Scribal interpolation ofsīdebeforereced, line 1981a (fol. 176v) . 155