Аннотация
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics
SIR ISRAEL GOLLANCZ LECTURE 1936
Read 25 November 1936
In 1864 the Reverend Oswald Cockayne wrote of the Reverend Doctor Joseph Bosworth, Rawlinsonian Professor of Anglo-Saxon: 'I have tried to lend to others the con-viction I have long entertained that Dr. Bosworth is not a man so diligent in his special walk as duly to read the books ... which have been printed in our old English, or so-called Anglosaxon tongue. He may do very well for a professor.'{1} These words were inspired by dissatisfaction with Bosworth's dictionary, and were doubtless unfair. If Bosworth were still alive, a modern Cockayne would probably accuse him of not reading the 'literature' of his subject, the books written about the books in the so-called Anglo-Saxon tongue. The original books are nearly buried.
Of none is this so true as of The Beowulf, as it used to be called. I have, of course, read The Beowulf,<...
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