Dream of the Rood, The

Raffel and Olsen organize the major old English poems (except Beowulf) and new prose selections so as to facilitate both reading and studying. A general introduction provides an up-to-date and detailed historical account of the Anglo-Saxon period, and concise introductions open the literature sections of the book and many of the translations. With more than 1800 newly translated lines and many revised older translations, the poems in this volume are organized into four genres--elegies, heroic poems, religious poems, and wisdom poetry. Prose translations--grouped in historical, testamentary and legal, religious, social and instructional, and medical and magical categories--feature writings by King Alfred, Aelfric, and Wulfstan, among others.