This third edition of the American issue of Bēowulf will, the editors hope,
be found more accurate and useful than either of the preceding editions.
Further corrections in text and glossary have been made, and some
additional new readings and suggestions will be found in two brief
appendices at the back of the book. Students of the metrical system of
Bēowulf will find ample material for their studies in Sievers' exhaustive
essay on that subject (Beiträge, X. 209-314).
Socin's edition of Heyne's Bēowulf (called the fifth edition) has been
utilized to some extent in this edition, though it unfortunately came too
late to be freely used. While it repeats many of the omissions and
inaccuracies of Heyne's fourth edition, it contains much that is valuable
to the student, particularly in the notes and commentary. Students of the
poem, which has been subjected to much searching criticism during the last
decade, will also derive especial help from the contributions of Sievers
and Kluge on difficult questions appertaining to it. Wülker's new edition
(in the Grein Bibliothek) is of the highest value, however one may dissent
from particular textual views laid down in the 'Berichtigter Text.' Paul
and Braune's Beiträge contain a varied miscellany of hints, corrections,
and suggestions principally embodying the views of Kluge, Cosijn, Sievers,
and Bugge, some of the more important of which are found in the appendices
to the present and the preceding edition. Holder and Zupitza, Sarrazin and
Hermann Möller (Kiel, 1883), Heinzel (Anzeiger f.d. Alterthum, X.), Gering
(Zacher's Zeitschrift, XII.), Brenner (Eng. Studien, IX.), and the
contributors to Anglia, have assisted materially in the textual and
metrical interpretation of the poem.
The subject of Anglo-Saxon quantity has been discussed in several able
essays by Sievers, Sweet, Ten Brink (Anzeiger, f.d. Alterthum, V.), Kluge
(Beiträge, XI.), and others; but so much is uncertain in this field that
the editors have left undisturbed the marking of vowels found in the text
of their original edition, while indicating in the appendices the now
accepted views of scholars on the quantity of the personal pronouns (mē,
wē, þū, þē, gē, hē); the adverb nū, etc. Perhaps it would be best to banish
absolutely all attempts at marking quantities except in cases where the Ms.
has them marked.
An approximately complete Bibliography of Bēowulf literature will be found
in Wülker's Grundriss and in Garnett's translation of the poem.