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Items
thought to be of particular interest or importance are marked out thus:
►.
Persons who
wish a more complete listing of scholarship in this area should consult
the relevant
parts of two on-line sources. These are
(1) Simon Keynes, Anglo-Saxon History
and (2) Carl Berkhout’s
personal web pages.
► Adams, Eleanor N. Old English Scholarship in England from
1566-1800.
New
Haven,
1917. Rpt. 1970. An
exemplary monograph that, since its date
of publication, has been supplemented by many items listed below, among
other
studies.
Baker, William, and Kenneth Womack, eds. Pre-Nineteenth
Century British Book Collectors and Bibliographers.
Dictionary of Literary Biography, 213.
Detroit: Gale, 1999. Includes
chapters on “Sir Robert Bruce Cotton” by Thomas
N. Hall;
“Matthew Parker” by Kimberley Van Kampen; and “Humfrey Wanley” by Clare
A.
Simmons
► Berkhout, Carl T., and Milton McC. Gatch, eds. Anglo-Saxon Scholarship: The First
Three Centuries. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1982. A
landmark publication directing scholarly attention to
the work of
antiquarian scholars from the late 16th through the 18th
century.
Bradley, S.A.J. “’The
First New-European Literature’: N.S.F. Grundvig’s
Reception of
Anglo-Saxon Literature.” In
Heritage and Prophecy: Grundvig and the
English Speaking World, ed. A.M. Allchin et al.
Aarhus: Aarhus Univ. Press, 1993. 45-72.
A balanced account of the man who was arguably,
with John Kemble,
one of the two greatest nineteenth-century scholars of Anglo-Saxon
literature,
as well as being an honored poet and a visionary thinker.
Bremmer, Rolf H., Jr., ed.
Franciscus
Junius F.F. and His Circle. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1998. A
study of the circle of scholars within which this
outstanding
Dutch-born Anglo-Saxonist of the age of Milton was operating.
Clement, Richard W. “Richard
Verstegan’s Reinvention of Anglo-Saxon England: A
Contribution
from the Continent.” In
Reinventing the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance, ed. William Gentrup. Turnhout:
Brepols, 1998. 28-46.
Discusses a German-born scholar whose
interest in Anglo-Saxon England was intertwined with nationalist
sentiments.
Collier, Wendy. “A
Thirteenth-Century User of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts.”
Bulletin
of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 79 (1997): 149-65. An
account of the aims of a cleric, known as the
“Tremulous Hand,” who
made copious annotations on Old English manuscripts during the period
c.
1190-1240, working chiefly at Worcester, and who wished to put those manuscripts to
use at a
time when Latin and French were the “official” languages of the Church.
► Damico, Helen, ed. Medieval Scholarship: Biographical
Studies on the Formation of a Discipline. Vol. 2: Literature and
Philology. New York: Garland,
1998. Includes chapter-length portraits
of Laurence Nowell, George Hickes, Humfrey Wanley, Elizabeth Elstob,
Benjamin
Thorpe, W.W. Skeat, Henry Sweet, and N.R. Ker, among others who have
contributed to the development of Anglo-Saxon textual scholarship. Also worth consulting is Vol. 1: History.
Dekker, Kees. “Francis
Junius (1591-1677): Copyist or Editor?” Anglo-Saxon England 29 (2000): 279-95.
Sees Junius as “neither a copyist nor an editor in the
modern sense of
the word” but rather “a seventeenth-century philologist of the best
kind.”
Dewa, Roberta J. “Of
Editors and the Old English Poetry of the Exeter Book: A Brief History of Progress.” In ‘Lastworda
Betst’: Essays in Memory of Christine E. Fell, ed. by Carole Hough
and
Kathryn A. Lowe. Donington: Shaun Tyas,
2002. 18-40. Analyzes
the history of publication of this
crucial poetic MS in the context of changing concepts of the role of
the
editor.
Douglas, David C. English Scholars 1660-1730. 2nd
edition. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1951.
Note particularly ch. 3: “The Saxon Past”;
ch. 4: “George Hickes”; and ch. 5: “Humfrey Wanley.”
Frank, Roberta. “The
Search for the Anglo-Saxon Oral Poet.” Bulletin
of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 75 (1993): 11-36. Examines
aspects of the 18th- and 19th-century
reception of Old English literature, in particular the veneration for
the
figure of the bard that is characteristic of that era.
► Frantzen, Allen J. Desire for Origins: New Language,
Old English, and Teaching the Tradition. New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1990. A
seminal study of the ideological and political motives that have shaped
the
field of Anglo-Saxon studies since the mid 16th century.
► Frantzen, Allen J., and John D. Niles, eds. Anglo-Saxonism
and the Construction of Social Identity. Gainesville, FL: Univ. of Florida Press, 1997. Includes
nine essays divided into two sections: I,
Medieval and
Renaissance Anglo-Saxonism and II, Nineteenth- and Early
Twentieth-Century
Anglo-Saxonism. Frantzen’s contribution
to the volume includes interesting details relating to the 16th-century
antiquarian John Bale and his reception of Bede’s story of the English
slaves
in the marketplace. Another essay, by
Suzanne Hagedorn, traces the reception history of King Alfred’s preface
to his
translation of Gregory the Great’s Pastoral
Care over four centuries. Includes
valuable essays on 19th-century American Anglo-Saxonism.
Gneuss, Helmut. English Language Scholarship: A
Survey and Bibliography from the Beginnings to the End of the
Nineteenth
Century. Binghamton, NY: MRTS, 1996.
Goffart, Water. “The
First Venture into ‘Medieval Geography’: Lambarde’s
Map of the
Saxon Heptarchy.” In Alfred
the Wise: Studies in Honour of Janet
Bately, ed. by Jane Roberts and Janet L. Nelson.
Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1997. 53-60.
► Graham, Timothy, ed. The Recovery of Old English:
Anglo-Saxon Studies in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2000. A collection of eight essays addressing such
topics as early editions of the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle and the OE laws; 16th- to18th-century
OE
lexicography, and early editions of OE poetry. The
antiquaries John Joscelyn, Richard Verstegen, William
L’Isle,
William Somner, and Franciscus Junius receive special attention. The “List of Works Cited” at the back of this
edition comes close to being a complete bibliography of studies
relating to
early Anglo-Saxon scholarship.
Graham, Timothy, and Andrew G. Watson, eds. The
Recovery of the Past in Early Elizabethan England: Documents
by John Bale and John Joscelyn. Cambridge, 1998.
Grant, Raymond J.S. Laurence Nowell, William Lambarde,
and the Laws of the Anglo-Saxons. Amsterdam: Rodolpi, 1996. Compares
16th- and 17th-century
transcriptions and
editions of four important Anglo-Saxon law codes.
Greenfield, Stanley
B., and Fred C. Robinson, eds. A
Bibliography of Publications on Old
English Literature to the End of 1972. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1980. Attempts
comprehensive coverage of all early editions and
studies of Old
English literature (broadly defined), as well as more recent literary
criticism.
► Gretsch, Mechthild. “Elizabeth
Elstob: A Scholar’s Fight for Anglo-Saxon
Studies.” Anglia 117 (1999): 163-200 and 481-524. Offers far more than is promised by this
title. Gretsch not only offers a precise
analysis of Elstob’s life and scholarly publications; she also surveys
Elstob’s
place in the overall development of Anglo-Saxon studies, with close
attention
to the late seventeenth-century milieu in which the young Elstob was
educated.
Hagedorn, Suzanne. “Matthew
Parker and Asser’s Ælfredi
Regis Res Gestae.” Princeton University Library
Chronicle 51 (1989): 74-90. Analyzes Parker’s aims in his efforts to
publish texts relating to Anglo-Saxon England, in particular his
portrayal of
Alfred as the “type” of an ideal monarch through his 1574 edition of
Asser’s Life of King Alfred.
► Hall, J.R. “Old
English Literature.” In Scholarly
Editing: A Guide to Research,
ed. D.C. Greetham. New York: MLA, 1995. 149-83. A masterful survey
and
evaluation of the editorial practices that have been observed in the
publishing
of Old English texts from 1566 to the present day; some attention to
current
theoretical disputes.
Stanley R. Hauer. “Thomas
Jefferson and the Anglo-Saxon Language.” PMLA
98 (1983): 879-98. An admirable account
of Jefferson’s intellectual interest in Old English studies and his
attempt to
make them the basis of a liberal education at the University of
Virginia, the
first state university in North America.
► Ker, N.R. Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing
Anglo-Saxon. Oxford: Clarendon, 1957, rpt. with a supplement,
1990. Indispensable guide to the extant
manuscript
records of Old English, with a substantial introduction discussing
palaeography, codicology, and the post-Conquest history of Anglo-Saxon
manuscripts.
► Keynes, Simon. “The
Cult of King Alfred the Great.” Anglo-Saxon
England 28 (191999): 225-356.
An exceptionally thorough and well-informed
account of the manifold uses to which the figure of King Alfred has
been put in
the eleven hundred years since his death.
Keynes, Simon, and Michael Lapidge. Alfred
the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983).
Includes modern English translations of
virtually all the documentary sources relating to King Alfred and his
reign,
together with an informed commentary including remarks on the
post-Conquest
cult of Alfred.
Krapp, George Philip, and E.V.K. Dobbie, eds. The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records.
6 volumes. New
York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1931-42. The
standard modern English edition of the poetry.
Lutz, Angelika. “Zur
Entstehungsgeschichte von William Somners Dictionarium
Saxonio-Latino-Anglicum,” Anglia 106 (1988): 1-25.
Murphy, Michael. “Abraham
Wheloc’s Edition of Bede’s History
in Old English,” Studia Neophilologica 39
(1967): 46-59.
Murphy, Michael. “Antiquary
to Academic: The Progress of Anglo-Saxon
Scholarship.” In Berkhout and Gatch
(1982), 1-17. Gives a clear overview of
scholarship to the
end of the 18th century.
Page, R.I. Matthew Parker and His Books. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1993. An informative account of the collecting
activity of Queen Elizabeth I’s trusted advisor, Archbishop Parker,
whose
collection of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts is still the pride of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge,
a college of which Parker served as Master. With
many facsimile pages of OE manuscripts and early
modern printed
editions.
Parry, G. The Trophies of Time: English Antiquarians
of the Seventeenth Century. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1995. Includes
chapters on William Camden, Richard Verstegan,
Sir Robert
Cotton, and Sir Henry Spelman / William Somner, among others.
Reynolds, Susan. “What
Do We Mean by ‘Anglo-Saxon’ and ‘Anglo-Saxons’?” Journal
of British Studies 24 (1985): 395-414. Points
out that modern thinking about Anglo-Saxon England
has been
shaped by racialist and essentialist doctrines. Stresses
that “the early medieval English did not call
themselves Anglo-Saxons. If we want to
call them that, we ought to
think hard about what we mean, and what others may think we mean, by
the name
that we have chosen to use” (p. 414).
Robinson, Fred C. “’The
Might of the North’: Pound’s Anglo-Saxon Studies and The
Seafarer.” Yale
Review 71 (1982): 199-224. Examines
aspects of Ezra Pound’s arresting translation of this poem into modern
English
alliterative verse, set into the context of the state of OE scholarship
at the
start of the 20th century.
Scragg, D.G., and Paul E. Szarmach, eds. The
Editing of Old English. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1994. Includes
several valuable studies of early editions of Old
English
texts; note especially Kathryn Sutherland, “Editing for a New Century:
Elizabeth Elstob’s Anglo-Saxon Manifesto and Ælfric’s St. Gregory
Homily” (pp.
213-38); J.R. Hall, “The First Two Editions of Beowulf: Thorkelin’s (1815)
and Kemble’s (1833)” (pp. 239-50; and Richard Dammery, “Editing the
Anglo-Saxon
Laws: Felix Liebermann and Beyond” (pp. 251-60).
Stanley, E.G. “The
Glorification of Alfred King of Wessex.” In his A Collection of Papers with Emphasis on Old
English Literature. Toronto: Pontifical Institute, 1987.
410-41. First published in 1981. Covers
the period 1678 – 1851,
► Stanley,
E.G. The
Search for Anglo-Saxon Paganism. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1990. Exposes
the untenable Romantic biases that underlie many
late
nineteenth-century accounts of Old English literature, especially among
German-language
scholars and persons under their influence.
Tuve, Rosemund. “Ancients,
Moderns, and Saxons.” ELH
6 (1939): 165-90. Describes
the early proponents of the study
of Old English as contributors, on the “modern” side, to the debate
between
those intellectuals who favored classical Greek and Latin models in
education
versus those who favored more recent vernacular sources.
Shows how this scholarly movement helped
prepare the ground for nineteenth-century nostalgic admiration for a
more
“primitive” medieval era.
Wiley, Raymond A. “Anglo-Saxon
Kemble: The Life and Works of John Mitchell
Kemble
1807-1857, Philologist, Historian, Archaeologist.”
Anglo-Saxon
Studies in Archaeology and History 1 (1979): 165-273.
The best current biographical portrait of the
person who, more than anyone else of English birth, put the study of
Old
English language and literature and Anglo-Saxon archaeology on a sound
scientific footing.
Wright, C.E. “The
Dispersal of the Monastic Libraries and the
Beginnings of
Anglo-Saxon Studies: Matthew Parker and His Circle: A Preliminary
Study.” Transactions
of the Cambridge
Bibliographical Society 1
(1951):
208-37. Includes very precise detail
regarding the fates of books containing Old English after the
dissolution of
the monasteries, though much remains unknown on that topic.
Wright, C.E. “Humfrey
Wanley: Saxonist and Library-Keeper.” Proceedings
of the British Academy 46 (1960): 99-129.
Wright, Christopher, ed.
Sir
Robert Cotton as Collector. London: The British Library, 1997.
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