Beowulf From Early Anglo-Saxon Text to Hypertext :: Internet Medieval Literature Essays

Beowulf From Early Anglo-Saxon text edition to HypertextThis paper describes the combined recitation of Mosaic and the World Wide vane as tools that will some(prenominal) allow scholars and re searchers to examine ancient manuscripts without the stake of physical damage to the manuscripts, and facilitate greater general public recover to the material. The British library is currently engaged in a rove to establish a full catch archive relating to the transmission set down the ages of one of the earliest known Anglo-Saxon poems Beowulf (thought by some to overhear been written in the eighth light speed AD, and rife with fighting, slaying and mythologic monsters), as part of its commitment to increase access to its collections, by use of digital imaging and networking technology. Images of parts of the Beowulf manuscript are scanned in 24-bit colour, both under visible and ultraviolet light. These images may be of entire pages, or just single words or letters. The resulting image files are spacious at a maximum size of 2320 by 3072 pixels each image takes up about 20-25 MB, however they can reveal level off more than information than would physical examination of the original manuscripts, for example allowing the detection of alterations to the manuscripts and reveal letters that have been obscured by repairs to eighteenth century fire damage. The Library is experimenting with the use of Mosaic and the World Wide Web as a front end to provide initial access to materials in the Librarys edition Rooms in London. Mosaic was chosen as a powerful, simple-to-use larboard suitable for users who may not be computer-literate. By use of off-line image preparation, server-side scripts performing on-the-fly image manipulation and caching of images, users are able to search quickly for detail in the images, while the hypertext features of the Web allow get through references to background material to be presented. IntroductionThe British Library is the cas e library of Great Britain. It has amongst its collection of over 15 million books and other(a) documents, several hundred thousand ancient manuscripts. One of these is a incomparable copy of the epic poem Beowulf, which tells of the deeds of the eponymous hero, king of the Geats of his battles with the half-human behemoth Grendel and the monsters mother, and ends with his mortal combat with a fiery dragon. The poem is one of the oldest subsisting Anglo-Saxon poems, having been written down in the early eleventh century AD, but thought by some to have been composed even earlier in the eighth century.