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At the British Library , a lecturer begins with a manuscript rather than a quotation . On the screen appears Cotton MS Vitellius A XV , the volume that contains Beowulf . Its shelfmark leads the class to a particular physical object . Within its leaves survives the unique medieval copy of Beowulf . At folios 132r to 201v begins the poem , which the British Library calls the longest surviving epic poem in Old English . The lecture therefore starts with a manuscript , not an abstract title . Not a single , uniform book , the volume comprises two manuscripts of different origin and date . They were bound together for Sir Robert Cotton . In this case , the material history is part of the literary history . Beside Beowulf in the volume lie Judith and other Old English texts . The poem is not alone in its codex . This setting changes the question from " What does Beowulf mean ? " to " What else survives beside it ? " In October 1731 , a fire damaged the manuscript's leaves . Along the outer margins , some letter forms were lost . In the lecture , the fire is not a distant anecdote but a condition of the object now read . Still visible are distortion , blackening and cockling on some pages . They record the physical force of the fire . The lecturer slows down here , allowing the fronted phrase to put the evidence first . Online , the British Library offers full digital coverage of the volume . A reader can inspect page order and damage without mistaking a digital image for the manuscript itself . The available images make material questions easier to discuss . What the lecture makes clear is that fronting can shift emphasis without changing the archival record . First comes the place , then the surviving copy , then the damage . By moving each element forward , the lecturer gives the facts a deliberate order . Which fronted sentence guides you most clearly ? Would you open with the manuscript's survival or its fire damage ? What fact would you move to the front of your own literary lecture ?
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