Includes bibliographical references (pages [349]-374) and indexes.
Contents:
(Re)introducing the texts of the Nowell Codex -- The passion of Saint Christopher -- The wonders of the East -- The letter of Alexander to Aristotle -- Beowulf -- Judith -- Reading the Nowell Codex in the Eleventh Century -- Reconstructing the Nowell Codex -- Dating and placing the scribes of the Nowell Codex -- Extant gatherings -- Judith, St Christopher and the missing gatherings -- Sequence of production -- The images in the wonders of the East -- A's collection of absurdities? -- The two artists of the Nowell Wonders -- Frames -- Colours -- The planning and control of the images -- Variant styles; multiple exemplars -- Scribe A's performance -- The value of the Nowell Codex's prose texts -- Corrections -- Scribe A's density of copying in Beowulf.
Summary:
Simon Thomson analyses details of scribal activity to tell a story about the project that preserved 'Beowulf' as one of a collective, if error-strewn, endeavour and arguing for a date in Cnut?s reign. He presents evidence for the use of more than three exemplars and at least two artists as well as two scribes, making this an intentional and creative re-presentation uniting literature religious and heroic, in poetry and in prose. He goes on to set it in the broader context of manuscript production in late Anglo-Saxon England as one example among many of communities using old literature in new ways, and of scribes working together, making mistakes, and learning.
Series:
Library of the written word, 1874-4834 ; volume 67 The manuscript world ; volume 10
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