Beowulf [antikvár]

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION This revision strives to retain the four distinctive features of the first and second editions: textual conservatism, concise presentation, concentration on the needs of literary students, and Wrenn's superb erudition and experience. Most of the alterations are of trifling errors and inconsistencies that remained in the second edition, or in recognition of work that has appeared 1958-70 (for the terminus a quo, cf. the date of the second edition and Wrenn's own " Supplementary Bibliography to 1958 " in Chambers's Beowulf: An Introduction, third ed., 1959). But about a third of the Introduction is new to this edition, preserving chiefly Wrenn's masterly discussion of the MS., the text, the origin, and the subject matter of the poem; and it was decided to offer a new bibliography, stressing recent books, especially in English; to restore the MS. readings of the contracted forms that Wrenn printed 'decontracted' in the first and second editions; and to compress the Commentary somewhat, while removing it from the back of the book to a place at the bottom of the text page. Those familiar with the earlier editions will no doubt recognize these changes, along with the rather fewer additions and alterations to the Commentary and Glossary that recent work has made advisable; but Wrenn's basic intentions and editorial decisions have for the most part been left intact. With rare exceptions, they have been altered only because of new evidence that Wrenn could not have seen. I am grateful for the aid I have received in the preparation of this edition: from colleagues; from the scholars whose writing I have perused and plundered; from the Research Council of Rutgers University; and from R. R. Minton, Esq., of the Editorial Department of Messrs George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd. W. F. BOLTON Douglass College, Rutgers University September, igy2