Beowulf: A Student Edition

Rating:
Summary: best student edition
Review: Jack's Beowulf is currently the best student edition (undergrad & non-specialist grad) available. The student's progress through the text is fluent and full, and is made so by the accurate and usable glosses that are conveniently placed on the right margin of each text page. The book is light on supporting commentary and ancillary helps, but its up-to-date bibliography makes any such inclusions redundant. The serious student of this important poem will need to advance, however, to Klaeber's still authoritative edition. This is so because the guiding hand of the glossary in Jack's edition will subtly and inevitably direct the student towards the editor's own overall reading of the poem and away from his own. Ideally, one should read Beowulf free of glossary and with only a minimum of attention to commentary. The reader's best friend here will be the unmatched Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Lexicon. The thrifty student may substitute J.R. Clark Hall's Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Also, try to keep the full OED handy.

Rating:
Summary: best student edition
Review: Jack's Beowulf is currently the best student edition (undergrad & non-specialist grad) available. The student's progress through the text is fluent and full, and is made so by the accurate and usable glosses that are conveniently placed on the right margin of each text page. The book is light on supporting commentary and ancillary helps, but its up-to-date bibliography makes any such inclusions redundant. The serious student of this important poem will need to advance, however, to Klaeber's still authoritative edition. This is so because the guiding hand of the glossary in Jack's edition will subtly and inevitably direct the student towards the editor's own overall reading of the poem and away from his own. Ideally, one should read Beowulf free of glossary and with only a minimum of attention to commentary. The reader's best friend here will be the unmatched Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Lexicon. The thrifty student may substitute J.R. Clark Hall's Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Also, try to keep the full OED handy.