The Editing of Old English

There has in recent years been a lively debate among ANglo–Saxonists about the principles on which Old English verse should be edited. The present collection of essays, by the foremost living critic of Old English poetry, will move this debate on to a new plane. Robinson approaches editorial problems from a variety of perspectives: several essays show how insufficient attention to the manuscript context of a poem has led earlier scholars into error; on other occasions, scholars are shown to have resorted too quickly to emendation when a fresh combination of philological skill and intelligence can make a transmitted reading yield good sense; on yet other occasions, Robinson solves intractable textual problems by clean and elegant emendation. THe message of the book is one which no student of Old English literature can ignore: namely that the interpretation of Old English poems requires thorough familiarity with the manuscript context in which the poem is preserved, together with deep philological learning and penetrating common sense. No student of Old English poetry has these qualities in greater abundance than Fred C Robinson.