Description
Book SynopsisExodus is an exceptional Old English poem, written at a time when in the age of Bede Northern England held the intellectual leadership of Europe. It offers a vernacular gateway to the study of early medieval christian poetry. Focussing in dramatic fashion on the crossing of the Red Sea enabling the Israelites to escape captivity in Egypt the poem is stylistically outstanding, showing a use of metaphor and fusion of disparate concepts (such as abstract and concrete, literal and allegorical) unparalleled in Old English poetry. The exodus, the greatest of Old Testament events, is interpreted both within the historical perspective of other Old Testament events (the Deluge and the Offering of Isaac) and within the allegorical perspective of the exodus to the Promised Land seen as the christian's journey through life to the ultimate heavenly home.
This book, now in its third edition, aims to make the poem more accessible, and better understood and appreciated than hitherto. A number of changes to the Introduction, Commentary and Glossary, as well as a new Select Bibliography, help to bring the apparatus up to date and draw attention to the many fine contributions to the poem made by other scholars.
Trade Review'Displays a wealth of scholarship.'
Michael Swanton,
Times Educational Supplement 25 Nov 1977
'Many first-rate contributions to the study of the poem.'
Robert T. Farrell,
Review of English Studies 29 (1978)
‘A fine piece of work.'
J.R. Hall, Year's Work in Old English Studies - 1977 in
Old English Newsletter 12 (1978)
'It is not too large a claim to say that ultimately . . . English poetic criticism and appreciation as a whole will benefit from Dr Lucas's careful and scholarly work.'
D.G. Scragg in
Critical Quartely 20 (1978)
'In many respects exemplary as an edition of an Old English poem.'
D. Jost in
Speculum 54 (1979)
'Twenty-six years after his second, revised edition of the Old English poem
Exodus, Peter J. Lucas supplies a welcome third edition of this important text [...] the edition provides not only an excellent introduction to the text and important aspects of the study of Old English literature in general to the student ‘beginner’ but will remain a staple on any Old English scholar’s bookshelf."Judith Kaup,
Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und LiteraturenTable of Contents
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- I THE MANUSCRIPT
- 1. History, Provenance and Origin
- 2. General Description
- 3. Sectional Divisions
- 4. Lay-out and Lacunae
- 5. The Intended Illustrations
- 6. Punctuation
- 7. Scribal Error
- 8. Compilation
- 9. The Textual Integrity of Exodus
- 10. The Corrector's Accents
- II LANGUAGE
- III METRE
- IV STYLE
- V SOURCES
- VI THEME
- VII DATE AND ORIGIN
- The Text
- EDITORIAL PROCEDURE
- EXODUS: Text with textual notes and Commentary
- Select Bibliography
- Glossary
- Glossorial Index of People and Places
