beewolf

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Beowulf

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Beowulf

Author: Unknown

Editor: James A. Harrison Robert Sharp

Release Date: October 12, 2003 [eBook #9701] [Most recently updated: April 11, 2021]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

Produced by: Karl Hagen and PG Distributed Proofreaders

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEOWULF ***

** Preface to the Project Gutenberg Edition of Beowulf **

This text is a revised and corrected version of the fourth edition of Harrison and Sharp in its entirety. It comes in two basic versions. The base version (available in plain-text and HTML) presents the original text as printed. It preserves the source-text's idiosyncratic use of accented vowels with the exception of y-circumflex (ŷ), which is replaced by y-acute (ý) to fit within the Latin-1 character set. Manifestly unintentional errors in the text have been corrected. In general, this has only been done when the text is internally inconsistent (e.g., a quotation in the glossary does not match the main text). Forms that represent deliberate editorial choice have not been altered, even where they appear wrong. (For example, some of the markings of vowel length do not reflect current scholarly consensus.) In a few instances, quotations in the glossary use the correct vowel length where the main text does not. These have not been altered. Where an uncorrected problem may confuse the reader, I have inserted a note explaining the difficulty, signed KTH. A complete list of the changes made is appended at the end of the file. In order to make the text more useful to modern readers, I have also produced a revised edition (HTML only). The file you are reading is this revised version. Notes from the source text that indicate changes adopted in later editions have been incorporated directly into the text and apparatus. Further, long vowels are indicated with macrons, as is the common practice of most modern editions. Finally, the quantity of some words has been altered to the values currently accepted as correct. Quantities have not been changed when the difference is a matter of editorial interpretation (e.g., gæst vs. gǣst in l. 102, etc.) A list of these altered quantities appears at the end of the list of corrections. Your browser must support the Unicode character set to use this file. To tell if your browser supports the necessary characters, check the table of vowel equivalents below. If you see any empty boxes or question marks in the "revised" columns, you should use the basic version.

Explanation of the Vowel Accenting

In general, Harrison and Sharp use circumflex accents over vowels to mark long vowels. For ash, however, the actual character 'æ' represents the long vowel. Short ash is rendered with a-umlaut (ä). The long diphthongs (ēo, ēa, etc.) are indicated with an acute accent over the second vowel (eó, eá, etc.).

Vowel Equivalents in Different Versions:

Orig. Revised Orig. Revised ä æ Ô Ō Ä Æ û ū æ ǣ Û Ū Æ Ǣ ý ȳ â ā Ý Ȳ Â Ā eá ēa ê ē Eá Ēa Ê Ē eó ēo î ī Eó Ēo Î Ī ié īe ô ō ió īo

** End of PG Preface **

I. BĒOWULF:

AN ANGLO-SAXON POEM.

2. THE FIGHT AT FINNSBURH:

A FRAGMENT.

WITH TEXT AND GLOSSARY ON THE

BASIS OF M. HEYNE.

EDITED, CORRECTED, AND ENLARGED, BY

JAMES A. HARRISON, LL.D., LITT. D.,

PROFES