Abstract
Exodus is one of the richest and most vivid works in the Old English canon as well as a fascinating confluence of Germanic and Christian traditions. The absence of a complete verse translation in print reflects the relative neglect of biblical narrative in favour of the much translated Beowulf and the elegies. Translation is required if this imbalance is to be redressed beyond the sphere of Anglo-Saxonist scholarship. This translation adopts the stress metre and alliterative scheme of the original and attempts to convey something of its vigour and evocativeness. Notes provide a brief introduction to important thematic issues and references in the poem and refer to salient critical discussions.
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Bibliography
Editions
Irving, E. B., Jr. The Old English Exodus. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953.
Irving has supplemented the apparatus of this edition with two articles: 'New Notes on the Old English Exodus,' Anglia 90 (1972): 289-324. 'Exodus retraced.' Old English Studies in Honour of John C. Pope. Ed. R. B. Burlin and E. B. Irving Jr. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974.
Jack, G. B. A Selection of Old English Poetry. University of St Andrews, 1994. Lucas, P. J. Exodus (2nd edition). Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1994. (1st edition London: Methuen, 1977.)
Translations Verse
Greenfield, S. B. 'Exodus (Lines 1-275).' Old English Newsletter 21 (1987): 15-20.
Prose
Bradley, S. A. J. Anglo-Saxon Poetry. London: Dent, 1982.
Gordon, R. K. Anglo-Saxon Poetry. London: Dent, 1926
Johnson, W. S. 'Translation of the Old English Exodus.' Journal of English and Germanic Philology 5 (1903): 44-57.
Kennedy, C. W. The Cædmon Poems. London: Routledge, 1916.
Critical Works Cited
Cross, J. E. and Tucker, S. I. 'Allegorical Tradition and the Old English Exodus.' Neophilologus 44 (1960): 122-127.
Hall, T. N. 'The Cross as Green Tree in the Vindicta Salvatoris and the Green Rod of Moses in Exodus.' English Studies 72:4 (1991): 297-307.
Howe, N. Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.
Kruger, S. F. 'Oppositions and their Opposition in the Old English Exodus.' Neophilologus 78:1 (1994): 165-170.
Marsden, R. 'The Death of the Messenger: The ”Spelboda” in the Old English Exodus.' Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 77:3 (1995): 141-164.
Trask, R. M. 'Doomsday Imagery in the Old English Exodus.' Neophilologus 57 (1973): 295-297.
Vickrey, J. F. 'Exodus and the Robe of Joseph.' Studies in Philology 86:1 (1989): 1-17.
Wright, C. D. 'The Lion Standard in Exodus: Jewish Legend, Germanic Tradition, and Christian Typology.' Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 227 (1990): 138-145.
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Love, D. The Old English Exodus. A Verse Translation. Neophilologus 86, 621–639 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1019681904919
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1019681904919