Beo-wulf og Scopes Widsið, to angelsaxiske Digte, med Oversættelse og
oplysende Anmærkninger udgivne af Frederik Schaldemose. Kjøbenhavn,
1847.
Anden Udgave, Kjøbenhavn, 1851. 8vo, pp. ii, 188.
Second Danish Translation.
_Nature of the Volume, and Indebtedness to Previous Scholars._
In this book the Old English text and the Danish translation were
printed in parallel columns. The text, which was taken literally from
Kemble[1], need not detain us here. No mention is made of the work of
Leo[2], Ettmüller[3], or of the 1837 volume of Kemble, although the
influence of the latter is evident throughout the book, as will be shown
below. The notes are drawn largely from the works of preceding scholars,
and in these the author makes an occasional acknowledgement of
indebtedness.
The translation is literal. Grundtvig’s translation[4] had been so
paraphrastic as often to obscure the sense, and always the spirit,
of the original. Schaldemose had the advantage of presenting the most
modern text side by side with the translation. Thus the book became a
valuable _apparatus criticus_ for the Danish student.
_Schaldemose._
The life of Frederik Schaldemose (1782-1853) was by no means the quiet,
retired life of the student. He had, it is true, been professor at the
school of Nykjøbing from 1816 to 1825, and later devoted himself to
literary work; but a large part of his life had been spent in military
service, in which he had had many exciting adventures by land and sea.
After leaving his professorship he again entered military service.
Later, he devoted his time alternately to literary and commercial work.
His interest in _Beowulf_ seems to have been, like that of Thorkelin[5],
primarily the interest of the Danish antiquary. In 1846 he had published
a collection of Heroic Danish Songs, ancient and modern. It was
doubtless a desire to add to this collection that led him to undertake
an edition of the _Beowulf_.
It was hardly to be expected that a man whose life had been so unsettled
could materially advance the interpretation of Old English poetry.