OLDEST ENGLISH VERSE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21248, 30 July 1932, Page 9 (Supplement)

OLDEST ENGLISH VERSE

MOO-YEAR-OLD BOOK A second edition of the oldest book of poems in the English language is almost ready for publication. This is tho famous Exeter Book, long preserved in the library of Exeter Cathedral. The first edition came out in Saxon times, and legend has it that it was written to the order of King Alfred, who caused pious monks to collect in one great volume all the old poems of England. It is the oldest book of its kind, for the great epic poems were sung bv minstrels, and handed down from father to son through the centuries, but very rarely were they put on paper. Dr. R. W. Chambers, Quain Professor of English Literature in University College, London, who is editing the book, said recently that there is no real proof that the book was commissioned by King Alfred, but it was quite definite that it was already old when it was acquired by Leofric, first bishop of Exeter. The Exeler Book is richer and more varied than any other collection of early Saxon poetry. There are a number of dignified, stately, heroic narratives, a beautifully written life of Christ and various religious poems. Then there are some strange, half-lyrical elegies—" Tho Wanderer," lamenting the fate of a retainer -who survived his lord and his companions, and 41 The Ruin," in which some Anglo-Saxon poet ponders amid the remains of a Roman town, probably Bath, and several more. Finally the book ends with riddles. Unfortunately the solutions are not given, and the clues are so long and so involved, and they leave the reader guessing nearly every time.