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Title: A Guide to Old English, Sixth Edition
ISBN: 0631226362
Author:
Publicate Date: 2001-06-15
Publish: 2001-06-15
List Price: $41.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $6.00
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Useful, if the organization of the book is understood
This book was recommended to me as preparation for graduate studies in Medieval English literature. As some of the other reviewers have noted, the book's organization is somewhat difficult to understand at first, especially if you are used to books like Wheelock's Latin, which is organized in self-study lessons with grammar concepts, vocabulary, and texts presented in order of increasing difficulty. This book is NOT organized in that way, but is still helpful if properly used.
The book is organized in a more encyclopedic fashion, e.g. with all noun declensions (including a number of notes on excceptions and variations) presented together, followed by all strong verbs (with notes), etc. Syntax has its own chapter. Therefore, you cannot expect easily to work through the book in the order in which elements are presented. It is better to remember that the book is organized by topic, not by the order in which a the many aspects of a topic should be learned. I had much better success when I started by memorizing the basic noun paradigms (ignoring the variations and exceptions), the pronoun paradigms, and then starting with weak verbs. I was then able to begin translating the basic texts provided, with the help of the glossary, and by referring to the syntax portion of the book where necessary to decipher the uses of different cases. In the midst of this I read about, but did not try to entirely memorize, the rules of sound changes, which helps greatly when looking up words in the glossary.
In short, it is not difficult to use this book for self-study, as long as you put forth some effort and thought into organizing your own "lesson plans," pulling necessary material from the book in a sensible order. Having learned another inflected language will be of great help in giving you an idea of the order in which concepts should be learned, but the "How to Use This Guide" section does give some suggestions about how to approach the material.
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2: No good structure for learning
Having read several other language texts, I was expecting an organization wherein each chapter consists of an explanation of a set of concepts, in increasing order of difficulty, followed by several examples (initially completely contrived, later becoming more authentic) that illustrate those concepts for practice purposes. This book, however, attempts to teach Old English by first simply listing all the rules of the language (often, as other reviewers have noted, in no particular order) and then presenting a stack of texts to decipher. The quality of the glossary notwithstanding, this is not a good way to learn a language, and only the similarities between Old and Modern English make it possible at all. By contrast, I learned Ancient Greek from the appropriately titled Teach Yourself Ancient Greek much better and more easily despite that language's innate difficulty owing to a far superior tutorial structure. If this is, as others suggest, the best available Old English primer, then I must regrettably conclude that it is not at present possible to learn Old English on one's own purely for fun; if you use this book, you will either fail to learn the language or fail to have fun, or quite possibly both.
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3: comprehensive but often lacks organization
If you only buy one book to learn Old English, this should be it. It's been the main text in both of the Old English classes I've taken. It's the most comprehensive offering available (as far as I know): it includes chapters on syntax and poetics and information on A-S culture. The introductions to the texts are often excellent, and--as someone else commented--the texts are organized by difficulty. The glossary is also everything a student could want: not only does it give the meaning of the term, but it lists all the places in all of the texts where the poem is used, and for each usage, it tells you number, gender, and case. Impressive.
However, much of this valuable information is presented as a hodgepodge of information. There is little rhyme or reason to the organization of the verb tables, for instance: the order of tenses often varies from table to table for no apparent reason. There are no section headings (unlike in Bright's grammar, where declensions are clearly labeled). In the chapter on Nouns, for instance, no explicit attempt is made to group the 18+ different paradigms into categories, although it would be easy enough to group these paradigms into declensions. The authors have also decided to include phonology and sound change information within their discussion of the grammar, but--again--they fail to include headings or signposts that could help the beginning student *understand* the connection between the phonology and the grammar. I found the organization of Bright's to be much more helpful. If you are using this text, you should plan on taking a lot of notes: much of the information in this book must be categorized and rearranged into more logical sequences in order to be used most fruitfully.
The best thing--in my experience--is to use this book alongside another grammar such as Bright's Old English Grammar or _An Old English Grammar_ by Quirk and Wrenn. These grammars will both help you understand the "big picture" of English grammar, which you can then use to reconstruct Michell and Robinson.
As of yet, there seems to be no strong, authoritative, highly accessible introductory textbook for Old English, comparable to Wheelock's in Latin. This book is the best of an uneven lot.
**Since I wrote the original review above, I found another textbook which I would recommend highly: Peter Baker's excellent Introduction to Old English. The material in Baker's text is presented in an extremely clear and sensible way. I strongly recommend it as a self-study book or as a supplement to anyone using Mitchell and Robinson in class. (Klinck's book of Old English Elegies plus Baker's Intro to OE would make a potent combination for an elementary course.)
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4: Excellent Single-Volume Introduction to Old English
This is not the best reader, the best grammar, or the best primer, but if you're looking to use just *one* introductory book before tackling longer readings with a dictionary, Mitchell and Robinson have created a fantastic resource. Work through and memorise the basic inflections as outlined in the introduction, then read up on the basic syntax, and then jump into the eighteen readings while slowly working through the rest of the grammar. Some initiative is required: Lessons and vocab lists aren't prepared for you. However, combined with a modicum of diligence and industry, this is a great way to learn Old English.
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5: The perfect guide
This book is brilliantly thought out and executed. It makes learning Old English wonderful challenging fun. By far the best book of it's kind available.
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