Transmission of "Beowulf"

Leonard Neidorf is Professor of English at Nanjing University and a former Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. He is the editor of The Dating of Beowulf: A Reassessment and coeditor of Old English Philology: Studies in Honour of R. D. Fulk.

• 1. Introduction1. The Duration of Transmission2. The Detection of Scribal Error3. Meter and Alliteration4. Probabilistic Reasoning5. General Prefatory Remarks2. Language History1. Diachronic Variation2. Dialectal Variation3. Syntactic Misconstruction4. Trivialization5. Interpolation3. Cultural Change1. Obliteration of Personal Names2. Obliteration of Ethnic Names3. Erroneous Spacing4. Scribal Self-Correction5. Chronological Significance4. Scribal Behavior1. The Lexemic Theory2. Competing Theories3. Variation in Parallel Texts4. The Four Poetic Codices5. Theory and Evidence5. Conclusion1. The Unity of Beowulf2. Linguistic Regularities3. Methodological Considerations4. Textual Criticism5. Manuscript ContextAppendix: J. R. R. Tolkien's Beowulf Textual Criticism

A short review like this hardly does justice to the genius of this astonishing book. The Transmission of Beowulf is a coup de théâtre, a scholarly manifesto of the utmost importance in its evidentiary rigor, theoretical utility, and vigorous prose. By any measure, it ranks as one of the most pivotal books ever written on Old English literature and will be recognized as a historic achievement.(Anglia) For close engagement with the linguistic idiosyncrasies of Beowulf, one may turn to Leonard Neidorf's recent study The Transmission of 'Beowulf': Language, culture, and scribal behavior. Here formidable scholarship provides rich insights into the attitudes and methods of the scribes who made the only surviving copy of Beowulf... [t]he evidence that he puts forward in this book, based on rigorous scrutiny of several hundred errors in Beowulf, is both fascinating and highly persuasive, and the book is indispensable reading for anyone interested in the manuscript context of Beowulf, scribal culture in Anglo-Saxon England more generally, or the early history of the English language.(Times Literary Supplement) Neidorf....obviously understands that inhibitions of this kind are profoundly unhealthy. His study is essential reading for all future editors of Old English poems and, of course, for everyone interested in Beowulf and its place in literary history.(Saga-Book) Leonard Neidorf's monograph is a thorough, detailed analysis of scribal error in the Beowulf text, an argument for the early date and Mercian origin of the poem, and a passionate defense of traditional philological research and textual emendation.(TOEBI) Neidorf provides perceptive discussions... articulates a much needed theory of scribal behavior; he concisely establishes the unity of the poem.... This book is essential reading for anyone concerned with Beowulf or the study of Old English scribal practice.(Studia Neophilologica) [The Transmission of "Beowulf": Language, Culture, and Scribal Behavior] is an essential treatment of the subject that no student of the poem can afford to ignore. The author shows himself exceptionally knowledgeable in matters of language and metre, and readers of this book have much to be grateful for.(The Review of English Studies)