Old Saxon Genesis

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Genesis is an

Anglo-Saxon poem known as Genesis B, and Eduard Sievers
postulated its existence on linguistic evidence before the manuscript was discovered.

Manuscript, dating and provenance

Palatinus Latinus 1447 is a

palaeographic evidence to the third quarter of the 9th century.[2]

Both Genesis and Heliand appear to be in an artificial literary language,

Abbey of Werden, in the centre of the Saxon area.[5]

Hypothetical reconstruction and discovery

In 1875, preparatory to publishing an edition of the Heliand,

University of Leipzig, found and identified the fragments on a visit to the Vatican Library.[7] Photographs were made and the first edition of the Old Saxon poem, by Zangemeister with Wilhelm Braune and with an introduction by Rudolf Kögel, was completed by the end of the year.[8] Sievers did revise his original hypothesis that the same poet was responsible for both Heliand and Genesis.[9]

Text, Anglo-Saxon poem and possible sources

The manuscript preserves three fragments:

These correspond respectively to lines 790–817a, 151–337, and 27–150 of the Anglo-Saxon Genesis B.[10]

Stylistically, Genesis even more than the Heliand shows that it is the product of a written tradition: although it retains features of Germanic oral heroic poetry such as alliteration and formulaic diction, it is discursive and uses long, connected clauses, and the language shows signs of developing towards the use of particles rather than case endings. Anglo-Saxon poetry had a longer written history beginning with the retaining of oral poetry, and the Anglo-Saxon translator of Genesis B has tightened up the loose connections by using more subordinate clauses.[11] The metre is also less varied than in the Heliand.[12] In some places, Genesis B has been further revised in the manuscript to make it more Anglo-Saxon in syntax, word forms, and (late West Saxon) spelling.[13] Metrically and grammatically, the Anglo-Saxon poem shows few signs of being a translation.[14]

The poem diverges from the story of the Fall as told in the

Gregory the Great[17] or other contemporary biblical interpreters,[18][19] including the Heliand.[20] It also reflects the theological crisis in the Carolingian Empire in the mid-9th century over free will and predestination, focussing on Gottschalk of Orbais.[21] However, the poem also reflects Germanic concepts in the role of Eve as advisor to her husband, in the feud element of the Fall, and in the mention in Genesis B, presumably present in the Old Saxon original and also present in the Heliand, of Satan employing a hæleðhelm or helm of disguise.[22]

References

  1. ISBN 9780299128005
    , pp. 11–12.
  2. ^ Doane, pp. 12–13.
  3. ^ Doane, pp. 44–46.
  4. ^ Doane, p. 46.
  5. ^ Doane, pp. 46–47.
  6. OCLC 2221124
    (in German)
  7. ^ Karl Breul, "Eduard Sievers", The Modern Quarterly of Language and Literature 1.3 (1898) 173–75, p. 174.
  8. ^ Doane, pp. 7–8.
  9. ^ Doane, p. 7.
  10. ^ Doane, p. 13.
  11. ^ Doane, pp. 89–90.
  12. ISBN 9781843840145, p. 365
    .
  13. ^ Doane, pp. 50–51.
  14. ^ Peter J. Lucas, "Some Aspects of "Genesis B" as Old English Verse", Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Section C, Volume 88 (1988) 143–78, p. 172.
  15. ISBN 9789042910546, pp. 157–88, pp. 158–59
    .
  16. The Journal of English and Germanic Philology
     101.2 (2002) 170–84, pp. 171, 173.
  17. ^ Cole, pp. 159–60, 187.
  18. ^ Doane, pp. 95–96.
  19. ^ Thomas N. Hall, The Saxon Genesis: An Edition of the West Saxon "Genesis B" and the Old Saxon "Vatican Genesis". by A. N. Doane. Review, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 94.5 (1995) 556–59, p. 558.
  20. ^ Hill, p. 181.
  21. ^ Doane, pp. 102–06.
  22. ^ Hill, pp. 178–79, 183.

Editions

External links

  • Text based on Behaghel's 1948 edition
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Old_Saxon_Genesis&oldid=1145127790"