Ebook: The Exeter Book. Part 2: Poems IX-XXXII

First published in 1934.

More than forty years ago the late Professor Sir Israel Gollancz undertook the editing of the Exeter Book for the Early English Text Society. He planned an edition in three parts. Two of these were to contain the text of the poems in the Book, with a translation; while the third was to consist of notes, introductions, indexes, &c. The first part, containing the first eight poems of the Book, from 'Christ' to 'A Father's Instruction', duly appeared in 1893. The second part was begun but never completed.

The present edition of the second part of the Exeter Book represents an entirely new text and an entirely new translation. The text has been collated both with the manuscript and with the photographic facsimile of this which has recently been published. In preparing the text I have tried, as did Professor Gollancz, to follow conservative methods, and have admitted emendation only when the original gives no coherent sense or when it unaccountably violates the most elementary principles of Old English metre. The arrangement of the text is the same as that adopted by Professor Gollancz, except that the longer poems have been broken into paragraphs.