Heliand: Text and Commentary

by James E. Cathey

James E. Cathey's Hê Text and Commentary is a simply unique, wonderfully encompassing, and helpful text, and nothing quite like it exists anywhere in the world. The commentary portion of the book consists of an interweaving of interpretation and philological consideration. This work presents the reader with explanatory commentary that encompasses both the scientific and the poetic and treats them both with equal felicity. The volume also contains something that is exceptionally valuable and cannot be found in a compact and serviceable grammar of Old Saxon and an appended glossary that defines all of the vocabulary found in this edited version of the Hêliand.

Genres: Medieval

360 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2002

Reviews

[Dave Maddock · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am told that we should be happy with whatever Old Saxon materials exist in English, but nevertheless Cathey leaves a lot to be desired. There are numerous typos and formatting errors (nothing too awful, but consistently annoying). The glossary is awful, but at least it exists -- the good dictionary to have is Tiefenbach, but the cost for that ($350) is f**king ridiculous and all academics should feel shame at this state of affairs.

The excerpts are pretty well-chosen, but sometimes understanding suffers from a lack of context if you aren't already familiar with your Bible. Cathey takes from both the M and C manuscripts, but the spelling & morphology isn't normalized which sometimes frustrates. This mixture muddies the grammar summary, which is weirdly presented. The commentary is pretty good though.

Frankly, this is a poorly edited volume.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

The text and the commentary are quite good, but the glossary has some problems with proofreading.