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A Literary Lecture on the Beowulf Manuscript
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.