This is a revised edition of this text which first appeared in 1981. At that
time, scholars were agreed that "Beowulf" was an early eighth-century poem,
few having shown any interest in the early 11th-century manuscript in the
British Museum. This manuscript has become a focus of interest as historians,
linguists and others debate issues relating to the unique physical context in
which the poem survives. This text, with its full discussion of these issues,
remains at the centre of the debate.;This edition includes a new appendix, a
record of hundreds of letters and parts of letters revealed by fibre-optic
backlighting along the damaged edge of the manuscript. A full-colour
facsimile of the manuscript is shortly to be published on CD-ROM, making it
available for study by many more scholars.
