Dichtungen der Angelsachsen

Grein’s Preparation for Scholarly Work.

Christian Wilhelm Michael Grein1 (1825–77) was eminently well fitted for the editing and translating of Old English poetry. He possessed a natural aptitude for the study of Germanic Philology, and had the advantage of studying with an excellent professor, Franz Eduard Christoph Dietrich (1810–83), in the University at Marburg. As early as 1854 he began his labors as a translator of Old English poetry with a version of the Phoenix, ‘Der Vogel Phoenix: ein angelsächsisches Gedicht, stabreimend übersetzt,’ Rinteln, 1854. In the same year he printed a translation of the Heliand.

In 1855 he assumed the position of Praktikant at the Kassel Landesbibliothek. Here he was able to devote a large part of his attention to the study of Old English, acquiring a familiarity with the poetry of that tongue which it has seldom been the fortune of a scholar to surpass. He formed the design of editing and translating the entire body of Old English poetry and appending to it a complete glossary which should not only give the meanings of the words, but instance every occurrence of the word. This design he carried out between the years 1857 and 1864.

Grein’s Texts.

The text of Beowulf is found in Grein’s Bibliothek der angelsächsichen Poesie, Erster Band, Göttingen, 1857, where it occupies pp. 255–341. A second edition, several times re-edited, is Beovulf, nebst den Fragmenten Finnsburg und Waldere, Kassel und Göttingen, 1867.

Grein never saw the MS. of the poem2. He based his text on a collation of all the preceding editions. This was unfortunate, because, had Grein seen the MS., he would doubtless have hastened to make a correct transcription of it. As it was, his edition necessarily shares some of the faults of its predecessors, since the text had never yet been accurately transcribed. A simple illustration of this defect may be seen by examining line 2218 of the text, where Grein reads,

be fire, fyrena hyrde,

following Thorpe3. As has been pointed out, this is an impossible reading, and one for which there is no justification in the MS. Thorpe, however, had presented it as the MS. reading, and Grein could not but copy it.

Like Kemble, Grein had a supreme respect for the readings of the MS., and he announced his intention of following this reading wherever possible:—

‘Bei der Behandlung des Textes galt als erste Pflicht, handschriftliche Lesarten, wo es nur immer möglich war, zu retten und namentlich auch manche angezweifelte, den Lexicis fremde Wörter als wolbegründet nachzuweisen: nur da, wo Verderbniss auf der Hand liegt, habe ich mir mit der grössten Vorsicht Aenderungen erlaubt oder bereits von Andern vorgeschlagene Aenderungen aufgenommen, wobei ich mich möglichst eng an das handschriftlich gebotene anzuschliessen suchte.’ —Vorwort, iv. (Bibl.).

This was wise. Since the days of Kemble, emendation had become unnecessarily frequent. We have seen in what a light-hearted way Thorpe spoke of the ‘blunders of the scribes,’ and how careless he was in the preparation of his text. The dialect had not yet received proper attention, and the copyists were blamed for errors that they never made.

Grein was extremely clever in filling the lacunae of the MS., and his conjectural emendations are frequently retained by later editors.

Still another improvement which he introduced was the full punctuation of the text; this was superior to any that had preceded it. In previous editions defective punctuation had obscured the sense of the lines; here it was made a factor in their interpretation.

Theory of Translation.

Grein’s theory of translation is sufficiently expressed in the Vorrede to the Dichtungen:—

‘Die Sammlung von metrischen Uebersetzungen angelsächsischer Dichtungen, deren erster Band hiermit der Oeffentlichkeit übergeben wird, soll einen doppelten Zweck erfüllen. Einerseits betrachte ich dieselben als eine wesentliche Ergänzung, gleichsam als fortlaufenden Commentar zu meiner gleichzeitig in demselben Verlag erscheinenden Textausgabe der angelsächsischen Dichter, indem sie meine Interpretation der Originaltexte, worin ich oft von meinen Vorgängern abweiche, einfach vor Augen legen. Andrerseits aber bezweckte ich dadurch die Bekanntschaft mit den in vieler Beziehung so herrlichen dichterischen Erzeugnissen des uns engverwandten englischen Volkes aus der Zeit vor dem gewaltsamen Eindringen des romanischen Elements durch die normannische Eroberung auch in weiteren Kreisen anzubahnen, was sie sowol nach ihrem Inhalte als auch nach der poetischen Behandlung des Stoffes gewiss in hohem Grade verdienen. Daher war ich eifrigst bemüht, die Uebersetzung dem Original in möglichster Treue nach Inhalt, Ausdruck und Form eng anzuschliessen: namentlich suchte ich, soweit es immer bei dem heutigen Stande unserer Sprache thunlich war, auch den Rhythmus des Originals nachzubilden, wobei es vor allem auf die Beibehaltung der eigentümlichen Stellung der Stabreime ankam, ein Punkt, der bei der Uebertragung alter Alliterationspoesien nur zu oft vernachlässigt wird.’ —Vorrede, iii.

Differences between the two Editions.

The second edition of the translation (see supra, p. 65) was edited from Grein’s ‘Handexemplar’ of the Dichtungen after his death by Professor Wülker, who has also re-edited the text of the Bibliothek. The differences are seldom more than verbal, and are largely in the early parts of the poem. The second edition is, of course, superior.

III.

The translation is a literal line-for-line version. Its superiority to its predecessors is, therefore, one with the superiority of the text on which it is founded.

The translation became at once the standard commentary on Beowulf, and this position it retained for many years. It is still the standard literal translation in Germany, none of the later versions having equaled it in point of accuracy.

1. For biographical facts see Grein-Wülker, Bibliothek, Band III, 2te Hälfte, p. vii.

2. See Grein-Wülker, Bibliothek, Vorrede.

3. See supra, p. 52.

4. The second edition presents no variation from this save the omission of the comma in line 501.