Koerner
translates it in full, and so does Zernial in his Program "Das Lied von
Byrhtnoth's Fall" (1882). This monograph contains the fullest study of
the poem that has been made. It is translated into English, with some
omissions, by Kennedy in ten Brink (pp. 93-96); it is barely mentioned
by Earle (p. 147), and a summary of it is given by Morley in "English
Writers" (II. 319-320). A Bibliography will be found in Wuelker's
_Grundriss_ (pp. 344-5). An edition of both ATHELSTAN and BYRHTNOTH has
been long announced in the "Library of Anglo-Saxon Poetry," but it has
not yet appeared.[1] Sweet says of the BYRHTNOTH (Reader, p. 138):
"Although the poem does not show the high technical finish of the older
works, it is full of dramatic power and warm feeling"; and ten Brink,
with more enthusiasm, calls it (p. 96) "one of the pearls of Old English
poetry, full, as it is, of dramatic life, and fidelity of an
eye-witness. Its deep feeling throbs in the clear and powerful
portrayal." He recognizes, however, "the tokens of metrical decline, of
the dissolution of ancient art-forms."
[1] Crow's "Maldon and Brunnanburh," 1897.
V. The DREAM OF THE ROOD is found in the Vercelli manuscript. Wuelker's
_Grundriss_ gives the literature of the subject to the time of its
publication (1885).
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