Old English Grammar and Reader: Grammar and Reader [Paperback]

Robert E. Diamond (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Wayne State University Press (December 1970)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814315100
• ISBN-13: 978-0814315101
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #271,719 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

99 of 100 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Unique and Very Helpful Little Book, August 6, 2001

By 

Cinna the Poet (Zeeusche Uytkyk, Svalbard) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Old English Grammar and Reader: Grammar and Reader (Paperback)

This is the only book for Anglo-Saxon that I know of, besides some editions of Beowulf, which has PARALLEL TEXTS for all of the readings. This is a huge help and will save you a whole lotta knock-shloggin' (looking words up), so you can study Old English kicked back with your feet up. Plus, the translations are nice and literal, and where they can't be literal, the translator gives the word-for-word meaning in parentheses.

Another nice thing is that, unlike most all other Old English readers, none of the selections here are translations of Latin works (and so not influenced by annoying Latin syntax), but all original Anglo-Saxon compositions, including some of the most important works: Caedmon's Hymn, The Battle of Brunanburg, The Battle of Maldon, The Dream of the Rood, The Wanderer, The Seafarer, The Wife's Lament, The Whale, selections from The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Alfred vs. the Vikings--hooray!), and others.

Mr. Diamond says that this book "is intended to make learning Old English as easy as possible", and he does a great service by publishing it. True, there are no lessons or exercises, but if you've been studying your German or your Icelandic then you'll have no problem with the very to-the-point treatments of grammar, Umlaut, metrics, etc. (If, on the other hand, you haven't been working on your modern German, then what the heck are you already jumping to Old English for?!)

This book, good also for review, will get you reading Anglo-Saxon texts very soon if not immediately, and the mix in them of a hardy Germanic character and a very familiar Englishness is pure pleasure.

(P.S. If you want a really helpful edition of Beowulf, get George Jack's (OUP), and if you want a nice overview of all Old Germanic, try Robinson's Old English and its Closest Relatives.)

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Within a year I could read Beowulf, March 18, 2002

By 

A. Holt "holtingar" (Pennsylvania, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Old English Grammar and Reader: Grammar and Reader (Paperback)

This text, in conjunction with Robinson's 'Old English and its Closest Relatives' (which you may want to read first if you're a monolingual English speaker)brings the world of early Germanic language and culture into a sharper focus. I feel that Old English is an essential study for anyone interested in Germanic languages. It serves as a solid base by which languages like Gothic and Old Norse are more easily and quickly understood.

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Old English Made Easy..., January 29, 2005

By 

FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Old English Grammar and Reader: Grammar and Reader (Paperback)

This is the first Old English grammar I studied, nearly 25 years ago, and it remains perhaps the best one-volume introduction to Old English around. Concise, simple, and accessible, this text has both a reader and a grammar in one cover, containing selections from the major Old English poems and prose works.

The prose works include 'The Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan', selections from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and the preface by Alfred the Great to the medieval work on Pastoral Care by Pope Gregory. There are relatively few Old English prose works that have survived into the present day; there are even fewer authentically Old English pieces, as many Old English prose works are in fact translations of Latin pieces, and for some reason adapted their grammar to the Latin original rather than the Old English natural pattern.

The poetry exhibits the paired-verse pattern (although the translations accompanying them do not strive to keep the metrical pattern). The poetry include majors works such as Caedmon's Hymn, The Battle of Brunanburg, The Battle of Maldon, The Wanderer, The Seafarer, maxims, riddles, and other poems. There is no Beowulf contained here, nor any other heroic poems (such as Deor), as Diamond states that these are the most likely follow-up readings after one gains a grounding in Old English, and the poems contained here are often overlooked by students save for the most dedicated of scholars.

The texts here are normalised to Early West Saxon dialect, with a grammar very simplified; concepts are introduced that are directly useful for the texts contained herein. The glossary is similarly normalised, and cross-referenced for various verb forms and other vocabulary links such as prefixes and alternatives. In a remarkable insight on how students use texts, Diamond states that, for the purposes of this introductory text, notes have been eliminated, as students rarely refer to them anyway. The section on metrics introduces the five principle types of verses, as well as some minor variations.

Diamond includes a brief bibliography with dictionaries, grammars, commentaries and more; this is now somewhat out of date, but also shows the slow pace at which some aspects of Old English scholarship proceed, with references going back to volumes published in the late 1800s.

A very useful and fun text from which to learn!