beowulf script grendel old english script it speaks

Malone's solution was to make complete collations of each transcript with the part of the manuscript that remained intact. As Malone rightly observes, “this procedure of his could obviously be improved upon.” 2 We need to know more about the quality of each transcript before according either one such extraordinary authority. Zupitza does not comment on their relative merits, and where their readings differ, he merely records in his transliteration (sometimes with emendations and restorations) the more plausible reading. Neither Zupitza nor Malone fully explores the reliability of Thorkelin A and B. With a few exceptions, Thorkelin obliges us to relinquish B as a textual authority for the poem. Agreement between A and B is a useless fact if we cannot be sure whether B is based on A or the manuscript. In any case, Thorkelin's methods tend to vitiate the evidential value of his own transcript. Apparently the manuscript was in worse condition after A made his copy than Thorkelin was willing to show in B. It reveals also that B is not an objective copy of the manuscript, as it purports to be, but an edition-in-progress, which includes a randomly executed conflation of the manuscript and A. Among other things, the collation reveals that Thorkelin A, made by a hired copyist ignorant of Old English and of insular script, is far more trustworthy than B, made by Thorkelin himself. Part Three: The Reliability of the TranscriptsĪ complete collation of Thorkelin A and B throws a rather disquieting light over the so-called received text of the poem.

This is an electronic version of Kiernan, “Part Three: The Reliability of the Transcripts,” and the “Conclusion” to The Thorkelin Transcripts of ‘Beowulf’, Anglistica XXV (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1986), pp. The Thorkelin Transcripts of Beowulf, Part Three

Beowulf script grendel old english script it speaks