[gothic-l] Re: Beowolf--the Goth? + Good News for Beowolf Buffs!
sig
sigmund at ALGONET.SE
Sun Jan 28 08:24:26 UTC 2001
Wow, Troels,
Thank you for that one! For all Beowolf buffs this new CD ought to
become a must:
The Electronic Beowulf
Kevin S. Kiernan
2000
CD-ROM
0-472-00260-0 $150.00NET Available
UMP Product Code: 00260
A wealth of unprecedented Beowulf images and
text on
CD-ROM.
The great Old English poem, Beowulf, survives
in a single
manuscript that was badly damaged by fire in
1731, and
further deteriorated before it was rebound in
1845. Some
sections are now preserved only in the two
eighteenth-century transcripts by the
Icelander Grímur
Jónsson Thorkelin and his hired scribe.
Making innovative use
of a digital camera, ultraviolet
fluorescence, and fiber-optic
backlighting, Kevin Kiernan has assembled an
archive of
digital images that provides not only
high-quality facsimiles of
what is readily visible in the manuscript,
but also of hundreds
of letters and parts of letters hidden by the
nineteenth-century restoration binding.
Joining modern
technology with knowledge of the poem in its
manuscript
context, Kiernan significantly advances our
understanding of
the manuscript and offers important new
information about
this major literary work.
The Electronic Beowulf provides a
comprehensive collection
of images of the entire composite codex,
British Library MS
Cotton Vitellius A. xv, including the
Southwick Codex and the
Nowell Codex (which contains the Beowulf
manuscript). It
also includes linked images of many hundreds
of readings
hidden by the nineteenth-century paper
frames; the
complete eighteenth-century Thorkelin
transcripts of Beowulf
in the Danish Royal Library; and two early
nineteenth-century
collations (one by John Conybeare in 1817,
and one by Sir
Frederic Madden in 1824) of the 1815 first
edition by
Thorkelin with the manuscript, before it was
rebound in the
paper frames. Supporting the digital images,
The Electronic
Beowulf features an SGML-encoded transcript
and edition,
both displayed in HTML for viewing with a
network browser.
Powerful search facilities for both the
transcript and the new
edition facilitate extensive and varied
investigations of the
manuscript as well as of an edited version of
it that engages
readers in the paleographical and linguistic
challenges the
manuscript poses.
Users of this CD will also be interested in
Beowulf and the
Beowulf Manuscript.
The images and texts of The Electronic
Beowulf are edited
by Kevin Kiernan, working with Andrew
Prescott, Elizabeth
Solopova, David French, Linda Cantara,
Michael Ellis, and
Chueng Jiun Yuan.
Kevin Kiernan is Professor of English,
University of Kentucky.
Minimum System Requirements
Windows
- Pentium 133 processor with 32 MB of RAM
- Windows 95 or higher
- Netscape 4.5 or Internet Explorer 5.0
(Netscape software
included)
- Sun Microsystems Java Plugin (software
included)
- CD-ROM drive
Macintosh
- Power Macintosh (G3 recommended) with 32 MB
of RAM
- System 8.1 or higher
- Netscape 4.61 (software included)
- MRJ Plugin and Times OE font (software
included)
For best appearance of images, set display to
maximum
resolution and millions of colors.
For more information see:
http://www.uky.edu/~kiernan/eBeowulf/guide.html
Seigmundr
PS I saved these three links (may contain duplicates I realize):
http://www.uky.edu/%7Ekiernan/eBeowulf/main.htm
http://www.uky.edu/~kiernan/eBeowulf/main.htm
http://www.bl.uk/index.html
DS
trbrandt at post9.tele.dk wrote:
>
> I am sorry I am a little late to take up this thread again. Just
> before leaving two weeks ago I sent a mail, where I referred to
> Ermaneric in the discussion about the Geats. As I have not seen any
> reactions I will try to explain a little more.
>
> In Beowulf we can read:
>
> "......
> Ne'er heard I so mighty, 'neath heaven's dome,
> a hoard-gem of heroes, since Hama bore
> to his bright-built burg the Brisings' necklace,
> jewel and gem casket. -- Jealousy fled he,
> Eormenric's hate: chose help eternal.
> Hygelac Geat, grandson of Swerting,
> on the last of his raids this ring bore with him,
> under his banner the booty defending,
> the war-spoil warding; but Wyrd o'erwhelmed him
> what time, in his daring, dangers he sought,
> feud with Frisians. Fairest of gems
> he bore with him over the beaker-of-waves,
> sovran strong: under shield he died.
> Fell the corpse of the king into keeping of Franks,
> gear of the breast, and that gorgeous ring;
> weaker warriors won the spoil,
> after gripe of battle, from Geatland's lord,
> and held the death-field.
> ......"
> http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgibin/browse-mixed?
> id=AnoBeow&tag=public&images=images/modeng&data=/lv1/Archive/eng-
> parsed
>
> Why did the author connect the Geatic king Hugleik dying in Frisia
> around 520 AD with the Ostrogothic king Ermaneric dying in the Black
> Sea region around 375 AD - and the mythical Hama? Why should we care
> about Ermaneric and Brisings' necklace unless they represent the
> background of our hero?
>
> Once this necklace - Brisingamen/The sun - was probably told to
> belong to Freja, but in the Christian version this cannot be the
> reason. Even to day elected mayors and chairmen of clubs sometimes
> wear a golden chain as a symbol of power. The royal crown was without
> doubt earlier a ring around the neck (or sometimes a helmet?).
> Ingemar Norgren has written an article about the ring as an important
> Germanic symbol of oath and power. The above mentioned necklace in
> Beowulf was probably the "crown" of the people of Hugleik -
> the
> unknown Geats.
>
> If so the authors idea behind the Geats could be that they had been
> in contact with Ermaneric near the Black Sea region.
>
> In a report from the camp of Attila all the followers of the Huns
> were called Goths by Priscus, and in cronicles from that time (a.o.
> Jordanes) Goths in the Dacian region were sometimes confused with the
> Getes, who were an earlier Tracian tribe like the Dacians.
>
> The episode of Hugleik took place 50 years after the army of Attila
> was disbanded. At this time Gregory of Tours called the people of
> Hugleik Dani and Liber Monstrorum called them Getorum.
>
> Around 1000 AD Dudo wrote: "... the Getae, also known as Goths,
> Sarmatians and Amacsobii, Tragoditae and Alans ...".
> (http://orb.rhodes.edu/ORB_done/Dudo/chapter02.html ). These people
> seem to be followers of the Huns together with Rugians, Heruls and
> Gepides. He also told about Danes being Dacians from Dacia, where
> both Attila, the Goths and the Getes settled.
>
> Dudo wrote his "Gesta Normannorum" at the same time as our
> version of Beowulf was written down. Are the names in our version of
> Beowulf based on the same information as Dudo? Were the Geats of
> Hugleik a Gothic tribe or one of the tribes Ermaneric subdued?
>
> Are our problems with the Geats/Getes/Getae/Getorum all results of
> the same old and wellknown mistake?
>
> This makes the Geats a tribe with Eastgermanic connections settled
> around the Bay of Helgoland from Jutland to the Rhine or in England.
> Therefore they could tell about Beowulf swimming home. However we
> should not expect a tribe from this area to fight against the Swedes
> around Uppsala as well as we should not expect a tribe from Western
> Sweden attacking the Francs as early as around 500. Therefore the
> narrator of Beowulf must also have mixed up stories about Hugleik and
> the Geats with Scandinavian stories about the Swedish Goetes.
>
> Just an idea! It includes of course many misunderstandings and many
> unreliable historians - but this has always been the problem with the
> dragonkiller Beowulf.
>
> Troels Brandt
>
>
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