Customer Reviews

A Guide to Old English, Sixth Edition

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

An excellent beginning grammer and reader. It is especially useful for self study. The explanation of grammatical points is clear, detailed and presumes no prior information. The "reader" is graded--i.e the easy stuff comes first. The glossary is absolutely invaluable because it lists every use of the word in the readings, identified by inflectional ending. If you look up a word, and it is used in the reading, that use will be specifically referrred to in the glossary (identified by line number in the work). Moreover, the specific form of the word used in that citing will be identified: if a noun, by case and number;if a verb by tense, mood and person. This means that if you are trying to teach yourself, you can attempt to parse a reading and then check your work using the glossary. The notes to the readings clarify exceptions, varient usages and dialectical anomalies. A Super Book!

_A_Guide_to_Old_English_ deserves its popularity in schools and is probably the best self-contained course in the subject for the general student of English. If you're an independent learner who's gotten it into your head to learn OE, this is also a good choice; in fact, the authors have opened their hearts to autodidacts and help you navigate your way through the book. I would hope, however, that you have already studied at least one inflected language (German is ideal). This book really should be subtitled _A_Reader's_Guide_, since the authors aim is to prepare beginners to decipher actual texts, not just memorize paradigms. To this end they acknowledge up front that many of the declensions are confused in the MSS; they note words likely to cause trouble and warn of places where singular and plural (or different cases, etc.) are likely to be mistaken for each other. The section on syntax is much fuller than is typical of first grammars--evidence of wise heads, as I see it, since syntax is much more important in OE than most students and perhaps some teachers realize. Also included is a long list of conjunctive phrases, a hallmark of OE and as important to know as all the subordinating constructions are in Latin. The reading selections are judiciously chosen, edited, and ordered. Delightful, and uncommon in works of this nature, are the occasional glimpses of the authors' personality that break through now and then: moments of humane warmth, or impatience with bumptious scholars (no names).

What this book lacks, however, is much historical or comparative linguistic detail. You would never know there was such a thing as i-stems, for example. The u-declension of nouns is identified by name, but no such honor is awarded the r-declension. If memory serves, the section on syntax, lengthy and helpful as it is, rarely draws the parallels with German that the reader might be interested to know. Thus students interested in Germanics--the ol' time philology--will need to supplement Mitchell and Robinson very early on in their studies. (If such things are of no interest to you, you may upgrade this review to 5 stars...but shame on you!!)

Any student of English or German will find Old English a fascinating-- and familiar!-- language. (And don't forget FUN-- where else could you learn jaw-breakers like "neorxenawanges"? No, I'm not going to tell you what it means. Buy the book.)

The revised 4th edition of this work was my textbook through two semesters of Old English in college, and its ragged and well-thumbed condition is a testament to how much I loved it. Mitchell and Robinson offer a clear and well-balanced approach to the language, literature, and culture of Anglo-Saxon Britain. The authors include both prose and poetry in their broad sampling of literary styles, and their short-but-sweet introductions to each reading help to place the text in both lingustic and historical context. The readings themselves are both interesting (for example, anyone who thinks Anglo-Saxons had no sense of humor should try the Riddles) and short enough for a beginner to handle, and increase in difficulty as one proceeds through the book. The glossary provides references back to the texts, notes variations, and (most helpful!) provides "see" references for variant forms, including inflections. Best of all, they incorporate a pronunciation guide. Although you may feel silly doing it at first, Old English is best read aloud (it started that way, after all!), the better to hear its modern cognates.

Having since surveyed several other Old English "beginning" readers, I can honestly say this work is head and shoulders above everything else I've found. This is an excellent text for beginning students, I highly recommend it.

Mitchell and Robinson's 'A Guide to Old English' is exactly what it claims to be: it smooths the path before the would-be reader of Old English and points out both the obstacles and the areas of interest along the way. It guides the reader through the highways and byways of Old English, and allows him to rapidly gain a reading knowledge of Old English, and some understanding of the workings of the language. Its goal is acquaintance with the tools necessary to decode actual Old English texts, rather than mastery of the language, insofar as composition is a topic omitted altogether. No attempt is made to train the reader to produce Old English.

This guide is not a language textbook in the usual sense of the word. It does not progressively present points of grammar and lists of vocabulary, followed by relevant exercises and translations. Instead, it comprises two parts. The first gives a fairly detailed overview of the grammar and historical context of Old English, whilst the second contains prose and verse texts, accompanied by copious notes, for the reader to attempt. The focus of the first part is not so much the acquisition of paradigms and rules as familiarisation with the general structure of Old English. The section on syntax, very important in Old English, is remarkably comprehensive. The collection of texts in the second part is, in my opinion, well chosen, and representative of the breath of texts in Old English, without dismissing the most famous texts. One particularly useful feature of the guide is its glossary, which contains every word found in the readings, and, for every occurrence of a word in the texts, its part is indicated in the glossary. This simplifies the task of deciphering a text enormously, and obviates the necessity for a separate dictionary.

This sixth edition is not greatly different to the previous editions: minor errors have been corrected, a few small additions on minor points of grammar have been made. The most important change is perhaps the addition of a few texts, e.g., the well-known 'Wulf and Eadwacer', but, all in all, the previous editions were already excellent, and there is no cogent reason to purchase this edition if a previous one is already on hand.

In short, then, Mitchell and Robinson have produced a remarkably usable guide to Old English that is at once instructive and interesting. One could do much worse than to acquire this work if rapid acquisition of reading ability in Old English is desired. As noted by a previous review, the book is not really suited to philologists seeking to understand the history and evolution of English and its place within the Germanic languages. As far as I can tell, this is its single greatest shortcoming, but it doesn't detract much from its purpose. I would heartily recommend this book as an introduction to Old English.

If you only buy one book to learn Old English, this should be it. It's been the main text in both of the Old English classes I've taken. It's the most comprehensive offering available (as far as I know): it includes chapters on syntax and poetics and information on A-S culture. The introductions to the texts are often excellent, and--as someone else commented--the texts are organized by difficulty. The glossary is also everything a student could want: not only does it give the meaning of the term, but it lists all the places in all of the texts where the poem is used, and for each usage, it tells you number, gender, and case. Impressive.

However, much of this valuable information is presented as a hodgepodge of information. There is little rhyme or reason to the organization of the verb tables, for instance: the order of tenses often varies from table to table for no apparent reason. There are no section headings (unlike in Bright's grammar, where declensions are clearly labeled). In the chapter on Nouns, for instance, no explicit attempt is made to group the 18+ different paradigms into categories, although it would be easy enough to group these paradigms into declensions. The authors have also decided to include phonology and sound change information within their discussion of the grammar, but--again--they fail to include headings or signposts that could help the beginning student *understand* the connection between the phonology and the grammar. I found the organization of Bright's to be much more helpful. If you are using this text, you should plan on taking a lot of notes: much of the information in this book must be categorized and rearranged into more logical sequences in order to be used most fruitfully.

The best thing--in my experience--is to use this book alongside another grammar such as Bright's Old English Grammar or _An Old English Grammar_ by Quirk and Wrenn. These grammars will both help you understand the "big picture" of English grammar, which you can then use to reconstruct Michell and Robinson.

As of yet, there seems to be no strong, authoritative, highly accessible introductory textbook for Old English, comparable to Wheelock's in Latin. This book is the best of an uneven lot.

**Since I wrote the original review above, I found another textbook which I would recommend highly: Peter Baker's excellent Introduction to Old English. The material in Baker's text is presented in an extremely clear and sensible way. I strongly recommend it as a self-study book or as a supplement to anyone using Mitchell and Robinson in class. (Klinck's book of Old English Elegies plus Baker's Intro to OE would make a potent combination for an elementary course.)

This is not the best reader, the best grammar, or the best primer, but if you're looking to use just *one* introductory book before tackling longer readings with a dictionary, Mitchell and Robinson have created a fantastic resource. Work through and memorise the basic inflections as outlined in the introduction, then read up on the basic syntax, and then jump into the eighteen readings while slowly working through the rest of the grammar. Some initiative is required: Lessons and vocab lists aren't prepared for you. However, combined with a modicum of diligence and industry, this is a great way to learn Old English.

Having read several other language texts, I was expecting an organization wherein each chapter consists of an explanation of a set of concepts, in increasing order of difficulty, followed by several examples (initially completely contrived, later becoming more authentic) that illustrate those concepts for practice purposes. This book, however, attempts to teach Old English by first simply listing all the rules of the language (often, as other reviewers have noted, in no particular order) and then presenting a stack of texts to decipher. The quality of the glossary notwithstanding, this is not a good way to learn a language, and only the similarities between Old and Modern English make it possible at all. By contrast, I learned Ancient Greek from the appropriately titled Teach Yourself Ancient Greek much better and more easily despite that language's innate difficulty owing to a far superior tutorial structure. If this is, as others suggest, the best available Old English primer, then I must regrettably conclude that it is not at present possible to learn Old English on one's own purely for fun; if you use this book, you will either fail to learn the language or fail to have fun, or quite possibly both.

This book was recommended to me as preparation for graduate studies in Medieval English literature. As some of the other reviewers have noted, the book's organization is somewhat difficult to understand at first, especially if you are used to books like Wheelock's Latin, which is organized in self-study lessons with grammar concepts, vocabulary, and texts presented in order of increasing difficulty. This book is NOT organized in that way, but is still helpful if properly used.

The book is organized in a more encyclopedic fashion, e.g. with all noun declensions (including a number of notes on excceptions and variations) presented together, followed by all strong verbs (with notes), etc. Syntax has its own chapter. Therefore, you cannot expect easily to work through the book in the order in which elements are presented. It is better to remember that the book is organized by topic, not by the order in which a the many aspects of a topic should be learned. I had much better success when I started by memorizing the basic noun paradigms (ignoring the variations and exceptions), the pronoun paradigms, and then starting with weak verbs. I was then able to begin translating the basic texts provided, with the help of the glossary, and by referring to the syntax portion of the book where necessary to decipher the uses of different cases. In the midst of this I read about, but did not try to entirely memorize, the rules of sound changes, which helps greatly when looking up words in the glossary.

In short, it is not difficult to use this book for self-study, as long as you put forth some effort and thought into organizing your own "lesson plans," pulling necessary material from the book in a sensible order. Having learned another inflected language will be of great help in giving you an idea of the order in which concepts should be learned, but the "How to Use This Guide" section does give some suggestions about how to approach the material.

If you have the previous edition and are wondering whether to upgrade, this eighth edition has the same format but with a general tidying, with some clarifications to the grammar. The biggest change is the addition of the opening 25 lines of 'Beowulf' with very full annotation, making it an excellent way to launch into the study of the poem, and now giving a pretty well rounded selection from the original for those who want to read most of it in translation. Despite the expansion the book is actually thinner in the new edition, thanks to finer paper - very thoughtful of the publisher!

There are now other learner's guides to Old English around that use different methods to get over the initial hump (e.g. Pollington, First Steps in Old English; Atherton, Complete Old English (Anglo-Saxon): A Teach Yourself Guide (Teach Yourself Language); or Baker, Introduction to Old English), but the value of this one is that it will remain highly useful long after this beginning stage. The arrangement is traditional, with grammar and reader in separate sections. This means that the grammar can be laid out clearly and accessibly for permanent reference use. The long section on syntax is masterly, and is a fundamental reference for even advanced scholars. It doesn't have to be tackled entire in the early stages, and over the years will provide much illumination in your reading.

If you are working without a teacher, there is a detailed study plan giving the best order in which to study the Grammar. The Grammar is written in a fairly informal style, with quite full explanations. There's also a glossary of linguistic terms, and a lot of handy summary charts. This is primarily a READER'S grammar, although historical linguistic points are introduced where they help clarify the grammar (with more newly added). There's also an abundance of supplementary material, including a guide to further reading which ends up being a characterful introduction to the whole field of Anglo-Saxon culture.

The Reader now has enough depth of coverage to be like a self-contained anthology, taking in many of the best and most representative texts. So the comprehensive glossary now also represents a complete basic working vocabulary - which you can slowly absorb out of the corner of your eye as you continually look up words when reading!

It is 'practically perfect' now, but for a dream version of the book (in hard covers!) I would make four changes, the first three in the Reader:-

(1) A moderate expansion, particularly of the prose (now a little thin compared to the verse), just to round out its completeness as a representative anthology: a few more passages from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (both early and, especially, eleventh-century); the poem 'Deor' to represent bardic ('scop') poetry; a homily; the poignant Codex Aureus inscription; and a few charters and wills to represent official literature (and dialect).

(2) For each text a super-concise bibliography, giving at most four to six references to the most valuable pieces of criticism and analysis.

(3) A rearrangement of the riddles so that the solutions are given on a different page (back of the book?), and only notes that help with literal comprehension are placed on the same page. Or at the very least I would add one or two riddles for which there is no solution (or none agreed), such as Exeter 37. The riddles are usually read at an early stage of study, but tackling them without knowing the solution makes for a brain-expanding challenge in advanced reading skills!

(4) A little more use of typographical tricks in the Grammar to aid clarity and ease of learning (e.g. different sizes and boldness of fonts to highlight what needs to be memorized).

The 'Guide' (through several editions) has been my amiable companion in Old English studies for twenty and more years now, so it is sad to read that one of the authors, Bruce Mitchell, died in 2010. This is the first edition to which he has not contributed.

I can't add much more then what has already been said as far as the layout of the book and how to use it. However I will say that it is a great introduction to Old English.

The readings make up about half of the book, and are the most important part of the book. And the readings are very interesting and entertaining. The grammar in the beginning of the book is meant to be there for reference when you start reading for the most part.
The glossary is thick and very helpful for translating the texts.

For those of you that found the layout horrible, you either didn't read the "How to use this guide" section in the beginning or don't find this style of learning suitable. The layout reminds me of a lot of the grammars you can find from the 1800's and early 1900's, such as Wrights Gothic Grammar. As long as you use the text the way it was meant to be used you'll find this a great text. If you don't know what I'm talking about search google for Wrights Gothic Grammar and you'll get an idea. Though this textbook is a bit more modern, and also has some historical information.

I find this text to be a very enjoyable introduction to Old English.