"Beowulf" and Other Old English Poems

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Iam indebted to many people for their support and advice in my years of working on this book. Swarthmore College has given me both financial support for my research and an intellectual home in which to teach. My students , with their love of these poems and their provocative questions, have kept me committed to the tasks of teaching and translating. Tom Shippey has been an inspiration and model for me over the years as I’ve much admired his scholarship on both medieval subjects and Middle-earth fiction. His reading of the manuscript , his offering of suggestions during the revision process, and his writing the foreword was a wonderful giefu, both gift and grace. My editor Jerome Singerman , like the Anglo-Saxon seafarer, held a steady hand in piloting this book through challenging waters. My wife Raima Evan read countless drafts, offering from her own wordhord numerous wise suggestions in my struggle to wrestle new words out of old. To my mentors who are noted in the Dedication, I owe the greatest debt. Their teaching and scholarship are part of the web of this work. Like the poets themselves, these mentors have passed on, but I hope my debt to them is partly paid in the offering of these poems. All these people helped me to shape a better book and bring these poems and proverbs, songs and stories, riddles and rich lore, to life again. ...