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COPYRIGHT 2004 Modern Humanities Research Association
A Critical Companion to 'Beowulf'. By ANDY ORCHARD. Cambridge: Brewer. 2003. xix+396 pp. 45 [pounds sterling]; $75. ISBN 0-85991-766-5.
Scholarship on Beowulf is a robust growth industry, yet the list of indispensable works remains short: an edition (F. Klaeber, Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburh, 3rd edn (Boston: Heath, 1950), remains standard after half a century) and facsimile (the Electronic Beowulf produced by Kevin Kiernan and Andrew Prescott on CD-ROM (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000)), one or two studies of the poem's metre, a few anthologies of essays, three or four book-length studies, some photocopies of shorter essays, and most recently the 1997 Beowulf Handbook edited by Robert Bjork and John Niles (Exeter: University of Exeter Press). Andy Orchard's new book earns a place among these works: sensibly organized, elegantly written, and thoroughly referenced, it is both learned and accessible, inviting for students and often humorous, but insightful enough to engage experienced readers, offering new thoughts on familiar passages and new methods for appreciating the poem's complex artistry.
The book begins with a look at Beowulf scholarship c. 1900--the age...
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