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The Owl and the Nightingale: Text and Translation

Cartlidge, Neil

Authors



Abstract

"[Cartlidge] provides a complete glossary and exhaustive bibliography, and an entertaining appendix of comparable works on owls, nightingales, hawks and jealous husbands. His parallel-text translation is exemplary: transparent and lucid, and with more claim to expressive grace than Cartlidge makes for it. This is an edition equally valuable for the student and the specialist." Times Literary Supplement, March 2002 The Owl and the Nightingale is one of the first and greatest long comic poems in the English language and one of the best-known and most accomplished of all medieval literary texts. By turns both gleefully trivial and allusively serious, it has been described by literary critics as a "most miraculous piece of writing", "a marvel of literary art" and "a truly amazing phenomenon". There is no other edition currently in print and this is the first new English edition of the poem since 1960. The book contains a lively parallel-text translation in modern English, as well as a glossary, notes and Introduction. The edition has involved a complete reconsideration of the poem's complex textual history, its linguistic provenance and the practices of its scribes, as well as its possible sources. Parallel-text translation in modern English, plus comprehensive glossary, detailed notes and an Introduction First new English edition since 1960 Reconsiders the poem's textual history and its possible sources.

Citation

Cartlidge, N. (2001). The Owl and the Nightingale: Text and Translation. University of Exeter Press

Book Type Authored Book
Publication Date 2001-09
Deposit Date Mar 7, 2008
Series Title Exeter medieval English texts and studies.
Publisher URL http://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/index.php?option=com_wrapper&view=wrapper&Itemid=11&AS1=owl+and+the+nightingale
Additional Information Reprinted 2003.