Electronic Beowulf 2.0 Presentation, May 21, 2007, Douglas Ryan VanBenthuysen

Here's some info relevant to my presentation today on the Electronic Beowulf, which is basically the contents of my handout.

Doug

• Cotton Vitellius A. xv: The name of the manuscript preserving Beowulf (The manuscripts of Sir Robert Cotton are so named because he would kept busts of Roman emperors on his book shelves. So, Cotton Vitellius A. xv was the 15^th book on the top shelf (A) of the bookshelf with the bust of Vitellius.)
  
  • Prefixed Leaves: Cotton added leaves to his compilation of the Southwick and Nowell codices. These leaves have resulted in their being two foliation schemes (BL, or British Library, foliation counts these leaves, whereas MS, or manuscript, foliation does not).
    
  • Southwick Codex: The first codex in Cotton Vitellius A. xv, indicated by a signature of ownership on the second recto. A 12^th century composition.
    
    • Soliloquies of St. Augustine: Transcription attributed to King Alfred
      
    • Gospel of Nicodemus (fragment)
      
    • Debate of Solomon and Saturn
      
    • St. Quintin Homily (fragment)
      
  • Novell Codex: Second codex in Cotton Vitellius A. xv, indicated by the name 'Laurence Nouell' and the date '1563' at the top of the page of 91(93)r. An 11th century composition.
    
    • Life of St. Christopher (fragment)
      
    • Alexander's Letter to Aristotle
      
    • Wonders of the East (illustrated)
      
    • Beowulf
      
    • Judith (beginning and original ending gone)
      

• Important Dates
  
  • 7^th – early 9th Century: Traditional dating of Beowulf's composition.
    
  • 835: Beginnings of full scale Viking invasions.
    
  • 835-1016: Unlikely dating for composition or manuscript given anti-Scandinavian sentiment.
    
  • 975-1025: Traditional dating of Beowulf manuscript
    
  • 978-1016: Rule of Æthelred Unræd.
    
  • 1016-1035: Rule of Cnut the Great.
    
  • 1016-1035: Kiernan's date for manuscript and composition.
    
  • 1536-1540: Dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII.
    
  • 1563: Date appearing in the Novell Codex.
    
  • 1571-1631: Life of Sir Robert Cotton, who combined the Southwick and Novell codices into Cotton Vitellius A. xv.
    
  • 1700: Robert Cotton's grandson John Cotton gives the Cotton Library to the British people/the British Library.
    
  • 1722: Manuscript transferred from Cotton's house to Essex house then to the ominously named Ashburnham House.
    
  • 1731 (23 October): Ashburnham House burns. Of 958 manuscript volumes, 114 were destroyed and 98 damaged "so as to be defective." Cotton Vitellius A. xv was badly singed. (See Andrew Prescott, 'Their Present Miserable State of Cremation': the Restoration of the Cotton Library. 'Their Present Miserable State of Cremation': the Restoration of the Cotton Library. Or http://www.uky.edu/~kiernan/eBeowulf/ajp-pms.htm)
    
  • 1787: Thorkelin A transcript.
    
  • 1789: Thorkelin B transcript.
    
  • 1815: Thorkelin publishes first edition.
    
  • 1817: John C. Conybeare's collation.
    
  • 1824: Sir Frederic Madden's copy of Conybeare and his own collation.
    
  • 1845: Each leaf of Beowulf is mounted in a frame for preservation.
    
  • 1882: Julius Zupitza publishes photographic facsimile of Beowulf.
    
  • 1981: Kiernan's Beowulf and the Beowulf Manuscript. Kiernan argues that the composition of Beowulf was contemporaneous to the production of the manuscript, and that it occurred during the reign of Cnut the Great. His argument is based on historical and linguistic evidence, and it charges that scholars have not spend enough time studying the manuscript which itself provides clues to the late dating of the poem.
    
  • 1993: Electronic Beowulf project begins for the sake of allowing access to the manuscript without risking damage.
    
  • 2003: Release of electronic Beowulf 2.0.
    

• About the Electronic Beowulf 2.0
  
  • Owned by the British Library, where it is available for purchase for 111.63 pounds of sterling British silver. (http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/themes/englishlit/beowulf.html)
    
  • Compiled by Professor Kevin S. Kiernan of the University of Kentucky.
    
  • Contents, CD 1:
    
    • Approximately 1000 x 1500 resolution jpg image of each folio at 572 dpi (about 200 KB per file), including all items contained in Cotton Vitellius A.xv.
      
    • Similar resolution images of all page of the following:
      
      • Thorkelin A transcript
        
      • Thorkelin B transcript
        
      • Conybeare's collation
        
      • Madden's collation
        
    • A searchable transcript (with lines broken according to the manuscript) with notation for readings that come from Thorkelin A, B, or other editorial judgments.
      
    • A searchable edition with lines broken poetically. This is perhaps the most controversial part of the project as it differs from previous editions, notably Klaeber, and contains 3184 lines instead of 3182.
      
    • User guide
      
    • Selected articles concerning the Electronic Beowulf
      
  • Contents, CD 2:
    
    • Approximately 2000 x 3000 resolution jpg images of each folio at 572 dpi (about 1.5 MB per file), including all items contain in Cotton Vitellius A.xv.
      
  • Functionality (CD 1)
    
    • Relatively simple Java application governs what appears in browser frames.
      
      • Left narrow frame for notes and glossary
        
      • Right narrow frame for alphabet
        
      • Center frame for content, which can be split into two frames for side-side viewing.
        
        • When viewing Beowulf, each central frame can contain the manuscript, either Thorkelin transcript, either collation, the transcript, or the edition.
          
        • The two frames can contain the same item. In this case, the frames can show folios sequentially or by collation.
          
      • One frame can be designated as "master." Moving through the master results in moving through the other item.
        
      • Top box, which is the Java application, allows switching between views, items, folio, etc.
        
    • Search
      
      • Edition and transcript are searchable.
        
      • Setting the edition or transcript as master effectively allows search within the images.
        
      • Many search filters available.
        
    • Folio 179r Special: Offprint from 178v can be viewed using Photoshop file with overlay.