Course Meeting Times
Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / session
Prerequisites
There are no prerequisites for this course.
Course Description
hƿæt ƿe gardena in geardagum þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon…
Those are the first words of the Old English epic Beowulf, and in this class, you will learn to read them. The language of Rohan in the novels of Tolkien, Old English speaks of long, cold, and lonely winters; of haunting beauty found in unexpected places; and of unshakable resolve in the face of insurmountable odds. It is, in short, the perfect language for MIT students.
After quickly learning the basics of grammar and vocabulary, we will read greatest (bloodiest) hits from the epic Beowulf as well as moving laments, the personified Cross’s first-person account of the Crucifixion, and riddles whose solutions range from the sacred to the obscene.
Book List
Required
Peter Baker, Introduction to Old English, 3rd edition. Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. ISBN: 9780470659847. [Preview with Google Books]
Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson, A Guide to Old English, 8th edition. Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. ISBN: 9780470671078. [Preview with Google Books]
Stephen Barney, Word-Hoard, 2nd edition. Yale, 1985. ISBN: 9780300035063.
Beowulf, trans. Seamus Heaney, Norton, 2001. ISBN: 9780393320978. [Preview with Google Books]
Optional
Greg Delanty and Michael Matto, eds. The Word Exchange: Anglo-Saxon Poems in Translation. Norton, 2011. ISBN: 9780393342413. [Preview with Google Books]
J.R. Clark Hall, A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Toronto, 1961. ISBN: 9780802065483. [Preview with Google Books]
Comments about These Books
Our main textbook will be Baker’s Introduction to Old English (IOE), but I am asking you to get Mitchell and Robinson (M&R) as well because their handling of the grammar is more detailed and technical; that may appeal to some of you, and all of us will benefit from having the same grammatical principles laid out in different ways. (M&R also includes several texts we will be working with that IOE inexplicably does not, including Beowulf).
Word-Hoard is a wonderful guide to the most common word-groups of the Old English poetic corpus. Its word-groups are organized with attention to shared etymologies that will help anyone who has studied another Indo-European language, and will interest anyone with any degree of native curiosity (which you clearly have, or you wouldn’t have signed up for Old English). Its word-groups will also serve as the basis of your daily vocabulary quizzes.
Finally, I am assigning Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf, whose popularity is well-deserved despite its occasional idiosyncrasies. (The version that I assign also includes the Old English text, which will prove handy when we come to work with the original.)
You may acquire any edition of these textbooks that has the assigned readings, but it is YOUR responsibility to make sure that it does indeed have them (consult the Readings section); one thing editors sometimes do between editions is change up reading selections.
I have also assigned two optional texts. The Word Exchange is a very cool set of loose, poetic renderings of the entire Old English poetic corpus (save Beowulf, of which many translations exist). We will discuss a few of these early in the semester while we’re knee-deep in grammar, but those who are interested (or completionists) may be interested in the whole volume. Finally, Clark-Hall is the standard “intermediate” dictionary if you want a hard copy.
Your final resource is not a book but a website, Old English Aerobics, which is a set of online exercises keyed to Baker’s IOE. I have not formally assigned anything from here, but I’ve played around with it and found it useful, especially for drilling verb forms. Poke around at it according to your interest and sense of your own needs in terms of paradigm reinforcement.
Grading Policy
| ACTIVITIES | PERCENTAGES |
|---|---|
| Exams 1, 2, and 3 | 25% each or increasing gradually in weight (15, 25, and 35%), whichever benefits you more. We move extremely quickly early in the semester, the on-ramp to this material is steep, and not everyone will start with the same linguistic background. I am committed to making the class accessible to all, however, and the variable exam weighting is one way of doing so without penalizing anyone (since this subject is not graded on a curve, a practice that MIT has long rightly prohibited). |
| Daily vocab quizzes | 10% |
| Attendance, participation, and preparation | 15% |
Calendar
Unit One: Old English Grammar and Short Prose
Session 1
Course introduction; preliminary discussion of case system and pronunciation.
Session 2
Vocab quiz.
Session 3
Vocab quiz.
In-class translation: Minitext A.
Session 4
Vocab quiz.
In-class translation: Minitext B.
Session 5
Vocab quiz.
In-class translation: excerpts from the Old English prose translation of Genesis.
[I strongly urge you to use Old English Aerobics to drill verb forms over the weekend!]
Session 6
Vocab quiz.
In-class translation: Genesis, continued.
Session 7
Vocab quiz.
Session 8
Vocab quiz.
Mock Exam 1 (PDF) distributed (complete and bring to class for session 9).
Session 9
Discussion of mock exams.
Session 10
Exam 1 (on cases, declension of pronouns, noun and verb form recognition, principles of syntax, and WH groups 1–60; will also include basic assisted and sight translation).
Unit Two: Longer Prose and Short Poems
Session 11
Vocab quiz.
Session 12
Vocab quiz.
Session 13
Vocab quiz.
Session 14
Vocab quiz.
Mock Exam 2 distributed (to be discussed during session 16).
Session 15
Vocab quiz.
Session 16
Vocab quiz.
Discussion of mock exams.
Session 17
Exam 2 (Vocabulary, WH groups 1–135, and translation, assisted and sight)
Unit Three: Longer Poems
Session 18–24
Vocab quizzes.
Session 25
Vocab quiz.
Discussion of Exam 3; subject evaluations to be completed in class.
Session 26
Exam 3 (covering all of Word-Hoard and translation, assisted and sight).
