Study carefully the section on "Language and Prosody", pp. 30-34 (1st edition, pp. 29-33).
Listen to this 72-second selection of a reading of some lines of Beowulf in the original Old English.
Or, listen to a few of these short readings, from the first lines of Beowulf.
Read the Introductory material to Beowulf on pp. 62-63 (1st edition, pp. 57-58) carefully.
Review the previous assignment to make sure you remember the main points.
Make sure you are familiar with the helpful information on pp. 106-110 (1st edition, pp. 101-105). You don't have to memorize all this stuff. You have to know where it is, so you can consult it when the names in the poem become confusing.
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Assignment: Summarize the Introductory material on pp. 62-3 / 57-8. It is about 1200 words in length. Your summary should be 300 words in length.
Email to me and to your group (if you have one)..