Publisher's Synopsis
Beatrijs, that pearl of medieval Dutch poetry, for many years very difficult of access, has at length appeared in a new and worthy dress as No., III of the Publications of the Philological Society (Beatrijs, a Middle Dutch Legend, edited by A. J. Barnouw, Oxford University Press, 1914). The editor, who is Lecturer in English in the University of Leyden, has on the whole acquitted himself admirably of his task. The text is meant to serve-somewhat like (Der arme Heinrich in the case of Middle High German-as an introduction to the study of Middle Dutch, and hence sets out with a Grammar of Middle Dutch (pp. 1-46), which gives an outline of the Phonology and Accidence but no Syntax. While not taking the place of Franck's (Mittelniederlandische Grammatik, this summary will be found entirely adequate for the purpose it is meant to subserve. Its examples are all taken from the text of (Beatrijs). The effort at condensation that is in evidence everywhere has perhaps not altogether made for clearness. Unscientific nomenclature also crops out here and there. Thus the monophthongization of ai and au is styled "smoothing" ( 23) and the same e and o that resulted from this process are referred to as "the originally long e and o " ( 7). The text is virtually a reproduction of the manuscript. While the Notes cover barely four pages, they furnish all necessary information not contained in the Glossary. In keeping with the auspices under which the volume appears, the Glossary emphasizes the correspondences between Middle Dutch and Old English, passing by the German material even where no English cognates exist, a narrowness of point of view that both in Glossary and Notes leads to the neglect of illuminating parallels. The Glossary does duty also as an accurate and complete index to the Grammar. That the editor has kept well abreast of current bibliography is shown, among other things, by his mention, in terms of high praise, of the version of an American scholar, Harold de Wolf Fuller (1909).
-Modern Language Notes [1915]
