The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry

The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry is one of only four collections of Anglo-Saxon poetry surviving from before the Norman Conquest of 1066. It contains approximately 130 poems representing a variety of genres, including elegy, riddle, wisdom poems, heroic poetry, versified saints lives, and meditative poetry. This edition is used in the teaching of 'Anthologies of Anglo-Saxon Poetry' (106-405), an advanced course which also focuses on another tenth-century poetic anthology, MS Junius 11 or the 'Caedmon Manuscript' (a popular, though erroneous, title).

Reviews

"In this two-volume work Bernard J. Muir builds on the work done in preparation of his 1992 bibliography of the Exeter Book, and the detailed study he has made of the manuscript, to produce a magisterial edition." [Carolyne Larrington, Medium Aevum, 65.1 (1996): 128-9.]

"Because Muir has made good use of his ability to examine the manuscript and to incorporate nearly sixty years worth of intervening scholarship, his new edition represents a significant improvement over that of ASPR. …Bernard Muir’s painstaking examination of both the manuscript and the enormous amount of scholarship on it has resulted in a wealth of new information alongside the riches of the old. It is a fine and full edition." [Susan E. Deskis, Speculum, 72.2 (1997): 535-7.]

"Two publications bearing on this article appeared after it had left my hands. One is a new, radically revised and updated edition of the poems of the Exeter Book, bringing to notice and consideration much of the scholarship that has contributed to our understanding of the manuscript and the poems since the publication of the Krapp and Dobbie edition of 1936. The two volumes of this new edition assert independence from the past on their very title pages: The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry: An Edition of Exeter Dean and Chapter MS 3501, edited by Bernard J. Muir (Exeter, 1994)." [John Pope, Professor Emeritus, Yale University]

The Exeter DVD

"The core of the work is Muir’s scholarly edition of the Exeter Anthology, and a facsimile of the complete Exeter Book. …New textual readings based on close reading and examination of the manuscript, and thorough discussion of earlier editions and emendations, make the work an essential resource for the scholar and advanced student. …It is a magnificent achievement." [Paul Cavill, The Medieval Review (tmr-l@wmich.edu)]