The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records (ASPR) is a six-volume edition intended at the time of its publication to encompass all known
Old English poetry
Old English literature refers to poetry and prose written in Old English in early medieval England, from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066, a period often termed Anglo-Saxon England. The 7th-century work ''Cædmo ...
. Despite many subsequent editions of individual poems or collections, it has remained the standard reference work for scholarship in this field.
History
The edition was conceived by
George Philip Krapp
George Philip Krapp (1872–1934) was a scholar of the English language who was born in Cincinnati. He graduated from Wittenberg College in 1894 and received a PhD from Johns Hopkins University in 1899. His doctoral thesis was on the Legend of the ...
(1872–1934), who edited volumes 1, 2, and 5 while Professor of English at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, with the assistance of his student and colleague
Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie
Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie (May 9, 1907 – March 23, 1970) was an American scholar of Anglo-Saxon literature who taught English at Columbia University.
Early life
Dobbie was born in Brooklyn, New York City, in 1907.
Education and academic caree ...
. Krapp died partway through editing volume 3, and Dobbie completed this edition before going on to complete the series by editing volumes 6 (which came out in 1942) and 4 (which emerged in 1953).
[.] According to Henry Wiggins, the long gap before the publication of Volume 4 was partly due
to Elliott's feeling that there was no urgency about completing the ''Beowulf'' volume, because there were so many competent editions. The Press, like any publisher, was troubled about the absence of Volume V 'recte'' Volume IVfrom a six-volume set, and I was assigned the duty of "prodding" Elliott. Despite all my efforts, he gave us the manuscript when he wanted to—when he felt he had something to contribute.
In 1960, the ASPR became the basis for Bessinger's ''A Short Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon Poetry''. A concordance to the ASPR was published in 1978.
The Old English texts in the ASPR were digitised by Greg Hidley under the auspices of the Toronto ''Dictionary of Old English'' project; this text was then corrected by Duncan Macrae-Gibson, though still with a few divergences from the ASPR text.
[.]
Contents
Scholars waver, when citing the ASPR, over whether they regard it as six works in a numbered series or as a single work in six volumes.
As six individual works, the ASPR comprises:
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As a single work, it is thought of as:
* .
The series was printed in the UK by
Routledge and Kegan Paul
Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law, and ...
, but the UK year of publication is not always clear, leading to some variation in citations. The series was reprinted by Columbia University Press in 1961.
External links
Anglo-Saxon Poetic Recordsat
University of Oxford Text Archive
References
{{reflist
Old English literature