About

This page contains the following sections:
• Purpose and Scope
• New and Unique Features
• Precedents
• Technical Information and Plans (by Bryan Tarpley)

Purpose and Scope

The purpose of the Beowulf's Afterlives Bibliographic Database is to offer the most complete and correct documentation of Beowulf representations, versions, and adaptational engagements from their modern beginnings—in Humphrey Wanley's transcription of two segments of the poem in 1705—through the present. The range of materials is defined inclusively, extending from the most conservative reproductions, such as photographic facsimiles and manuscript transcriptions; to academic mediations, like editions of the Old English text and traditional translations; to all types of freer adaptations and remakings that refashion Beowulf or salient elements of it into new creative works, such as novels, lyric poems, plays, comic books, and films. The BABD covers works in all languages, genres, and media forms.

For works whose inclusion can be argued for but is debatable, my practice is generally to include. It is precisely in the cases requiring discussion that some of the most interesting analysis, such as the BABD is meant to support, can take place.

The BABD debuted publicly in 2018. Refinements are made and its bibliographic contents developed continually. In March 2022 the BABD reached its 1000th entry, and I estimate that its final, complete form will contain around 2000 entries.

The current incompleteness of the BABD means that some users will be aware of Beowulf versions not yet represented in it. I too am aware of many for which I have not yet created entries. In some cases I simply have not gotten to them yet, but this is also due in part to the BABD's high standards of bibliographic authentication and information transparency (see below), which means that I am unwilling to rely on indirect information, repeated from other published sources, if there is an alternative. Often a work's inclusion awaits access to it that I anticipate having in the near future.

New and Unique Features

The following features of the BABD distinguish it from previously existing resources on Beowulf's modern history.

1. Rather than being just a bibliographic listing, the BABD's descriptive entries provide detailed information about the work's contents, contexts, and nature, often running to several hundred words. Where possible, entries for textual works also quote the beginning and end of the work in order to give users a direct sample and a sense of its character.

2. The BABD has transparent information-sourcing, with an Authentication field present in each entry. The prior scholarly record contains many errors that are repeated from one bibliography to the next (as described in Precedents, below). If a BABD entry's Authentication field shows my initials, "BAM," this means that I have directly examined the listed work and personally attest to the information given. When the form I have seen is not the original or first edition (e.g., when what I have seen is a later reprint or digital images), that fact is stated. When examination by me has not been possible, the Authentication field identifies my source of information. Thus a user of the BABD is always well positioned to judge the information pedigree of each individual entry.

3. The contents of the database can be searched or organized by several methods. There is a free-search feature for terms of interest; a "Filter" button allows results to be generated according to categories like personal name, genre/type, or language; and the BABD's whole contents, or the results of searches or filters, can be sorted by parameters like date or alphabetical order. (The "How To" page gives more details on using these features.)

4. Database contents can be exported to a text file for further manipulation or repurposing.

5. The BABD expresses networks of relation among its entries. Relationships are mainly conceived of as "upstream" (i.e., the entry's target work derives from the other, related work) or "downstream" (i.e., the entry's target work is a source of the other, related work), with many specifying descriptors of upstream and downstream relations. Some non-directional relationship terms are used, such as "Collocates with" and "Forms series with." From any entry that participates in a network, verbal links identifying the relationships can be followed to the other relevant entries. Networks of relation can also be graphed using the BABD's built-in visualization tool.

Precedents

Several prior bibliographies include Beowulf versions and adaptations. These are the most important:

• Donald K. Fry, Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburh: A Bibliography (Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1969). Covers the beginnings to July 1967. Cited in BABD as Fry.

• Stanley B. Greenfield and Fred C. Robinson, A Bibliography of Publications on Old English Literature to the End of 1972 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980). Covers the beginnings to 1972. Cited in BABD as GR.

• Marijane Osborn, "Translations of Beowulf (and 'The Fight at Finnsburg')," a new appendix to Chauncey B. Tinker, The Translations of Beowulf: A Critical Bibliography (1903), added to the rev. ed. (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1974), 151-80. Covers the beginnings to 1974. Cited in BABD as MO1.

• Marijane Osborn, "Annotated List of Beowulf Translations (2003)," Medieval Perspectives 35 (2021): 125-58. Covers the beginnings to 2003. This list was formerly a webpage published by the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, but was removed in 2019 by ACMRS and is now reprinted as an article in the journal Medieval Perspectives. Cited in BABD as MO2.

These resources remain indispensable points of reference for the BABD, but besides now being out of date, none does what this database is designed to do as fully as it can do it. Upon reaching the 1000-entry mark, I surveyed its relationship to these prior bibliographies. In its first thousand entries, the BABD contains

• 850 items not represented in Fry, 197 of these before his cutoff date of 1967;
• 841 items not represented in GR, 229 of these before their cutoff date of 1972;
• 852 items not represented in MO1, 243 of these before her cutoff date of 1974; and
• 801 items not represented in MO2, 470 of these before her cutoff date of 2003.

These numbers in part reflect my finding Beowulf versions or adaptations that others missed, but they are also due to some differences in purpose or coverage. Fry and GR include editions and translations, as the BABD does, but otherwise focus on scholarship, criticism, and commentary. Although they do include some more liberal presentations and re-imaginings of Beowulf itself, they omit many of these within the periods they cover. MO1 and MO2, on the other hand, embrace freer versions of Beowulf, but do not include editions or other presentations of the Old English poem. MO2, less outdated than MO1, is a more informal handlist.

It is also crucial to note that all of the above-listed bibliographies contain inaccuracies, owing to their partial reliance on one another and on other secondary resources. In my work on the BABD, it has become clear that prior bibliographers of Beowulf materials often listed items they had not verified for themselves, and if an error occurs in Fry, for instance, it is nearly always repeated in GR, MO1, and MO2.

These scholars undertook enormous tasks of compilation without today's technological aids (and Osborn in particular was careful to alert her readers in 1974 and 2003 that she had accepted indirect information). However, the fact remains that many errors got into their bibliographies and, seeming authoritative, have sometimes propagated from there. This is why Fry, MO1, GR, and MO2 contain references to works that do not yet have entries in the BABD: I will not take their word for it and copy their information if there is an alternative. The BABD's entries are independently verifying through direct examination of cited works, where possible, and are correcting the record where needed. At the time of its 1000th entry, the BABD had noted approximately 300 mistaken, misleading, or discrepant claims among the four earlier bibliographies listed above, sometimes trivial but sometimes quite major.

Technical Information and Plans (by Bryan Tarpley)

The Beowulf's Afterlives Bibliographic Database is a web application written in Python 3.5 using the Django web framework. The backend database is MySQL, and the database schema is generated using Django models. The creation and editing of bibliographic entries is accomplished using the Django admin interface.

Slated for development is the automated output of metadata for the bibliography in RDF XML format according to the schema stipulated by the Advanced Research Consortium. This will enable the BABD to be appropriately indexed by aggregators like mesa-medieval.org, allowing for better discovery of bibliographic entries by the scholarly community.