ABSTRACT

The sudden death of ten Brink left the first edition of Hermann Paul’s influential and authoritative Grundriss with only a gap where Beowulf should have been (see Introduction, p. 66). This was filled in the second edition (in which the fascicles containing ‘English literature’ were originally published separately in 1908) by a new entry from Alois Brandl (1855-1940), ‘Englische Literatur’, in Hermann Paul, ed., Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, 2nd edn Strasburg 1901-9, vol. 2, section 1, 941-1134. For the effect and influence of the piece, see Introduction, pp. 66-7. The excerpt below is taken from sections 31, on ‘Organisation of the Material’, and 32 ‘Origin of the Text’. Section 30, on ‘Christian Elements’, ends with Brandl pointing to recently converted Mercia, approx. 675-715, as a likely place and time for the poem’s composition. Pp. 1003-5.