These are some comments from students who have taken English 340, 341 and 346 in the past.
This course was challenging because I required a new interdisciplinary grammar to apply to a specialized topic. History, Anthropology, Language and Literature are all relevant to this study. As it was a project-driven course, we brought our individual talents to the class: Two students had an adventure in mead-making, one enthusiastic student reconstructed a lyre and presented a passionate performance of Beowulf, and many students made mock manuscripts.
I found the exercises in the course very useful, even in seemingly unrelated classes- the lessons in parsing assisted my writing and comprehension. I enjoyed reading the riddles of Codex Exoniensis and selected OE excerpts. Each student had a unique way of reading and translating. My suggestion for this class is to begin by finding a good OE dictionary in the library. The most frequently mentioned text in class was J.R. Clark Hall?s "A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary". Whereas Sweet?s Anglo-Saxon Primer gives us the rules, the gloss is not as comprehensive as Hall. There is an online version of the dictionary:
On the same site, there is another Anglo-Saxon Dictionary:
This course was a round-table discussion of OE poetry translation. The focus was on excerpts from Beowulf, and a miscellany of poems. Our group was studious and social. We read thought-provoking essays and presented our findings during class. Again, we had a chance to bring our individual talents to class. Each student compared an excerpt of Beowulf with an aspect of Medieval culture, ranging from religion to warfare.
It's satisfying to read early English poetry that preserves both sacred and secular writing. A good example of Old English manuscripts is the digitized Codex Exoniensis, on DVD in Special Collections. The OE HRD website is very useful for this class. Also, take a look at the manuscripts in Special Collections digital projects:
The 346 class was a smaller group. The students in our class came from a range of disciplines, including Literature, History, Linguistics and Computer Science. The exercise book for this class (Chapman's OI Graded Readings and Exercises) included Old Icelandic saga and edda excerpts. Because the group was so small, we were able to make our own decisions about some of the course material. We had a chance to read about pilgrimages in Audun's Saga, and read excerpts relating to Old Norse mythology in Snorri's Edda.
My advice for this class is to make full use of the Gordon textbook: His notes on the saga and edda selections are helpful. If his gloss is not enough for your translations, try Geir T. Zoëga's A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic. Another useful resource is the Germanic Lexicon (which hosts the online Anglo-Saxon texts mentioned above). I also suggest investigating the Arnamagnĉan Institutes in Copenhagen and Reykjavik.
When I enrolled in Old English 340, I had no background whatsoever in medieval or classical studies, except what I'd picked up from novels such as Tolkien's Lord of the Rings or Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, Gaiman's Sandmancomics or AS Byatt'sPossession, and from a vaguely recollected course my first year of college in which I almost read 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'. As such, my knowledge of medieval vowels, geographies, histories, and customs was to say the least erratic, extrapolated, and exaggerated. Also I had never seriously studied the grammar of any language, never mind one which followed the Indo-European fashion of inflexion, but had also evolved quite a long way from it into a semi-irregular system. It was hard. In spite of that, English 340/341 were my favourite courses at university.
I learnt quickly that nouns 'decline' and verbs 'conjugate', and that 'agreement' was more important than syntax, but syntax couldn't possibly be ignored. I learned that the four main Cases of Old English, Nominative, Accusative, Genitive and Dative are condensed from at least 8 Cases postulated for Proto-Indo-European, the hypothetical 'mother' of all Germanic languages (and many other languages between western Europe and central Asia), which means that each Case in OE has too many functions, sometimes conflicting. Also I learned that the classification of 'strong' and 'weak' nouns and verbs have nothing to do with their lexical sense, any more than the more commonly known use of gender, in languages such as French, has anything to do with the sex of 'le crayon sur la table' (hm). Like the Lofoten Maelstrom on a bad day, there's a lot pulling of one's attention every which way in Old English language.
Part of the challenge of the course is the basic division or conflict common to all Old English studies, between focusing on the language—or the literature.
There's a lot going on in Old English literature. Talking mice and silver shields don't prepare one much for the fact that 'Old English literature' emerged from the highly variable geography of Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia and Wessex, the which kingdoms in turn emerged from much earlier continental peoples, languages and traditions. Nor did I know that its speakers were an antagonistic mix of 'Angles, Saxons and Jutes', and also Scots and Norse. And all this over the course of several hundred years. This makes for a great deal of variation in spelling, vocabulary and pronunciation. And it indicates what a scholarly and Herculean accomplishment it was for contemporaneous scholars such as Bede to collect and inscribe any Old English texts at all. Our efforts to read and revivify these texts are nothing in comparison: we stand on the shoulders of giants. And those poets and historians in turn felt the same way: they were witness to the remains of Roman and other civilizations and marveled at their monolithic mysteries--'orŝanc enta geweorc'. Sound familiar? Tolkien's creative 'career' benefited greatly from his OE studies.
Most of all, I had no idea that many Old English poems which we consider to be of great antiquity--the perfect example being 'Beowulf'—are really harkening back to stories, ideas and characters from much further away, much longer ago: 'Beowulf' doesn't occur in England at all, but rather 'Scandinavia'. There's a whole extended world of literature, history and myth relating to Iceland and other Norse countries which any one interested in Old English at all ought to explore. A lot of Old English texts that remain to us seem to involve doom, dragons, herbal formulas, wanderings, wars, Christianity, the occasional lost love, and more doom; if you aren't interested you'll get frustrated. If you do get a bit tired of morose musings (but who would), there's nothing like crossing over to Old Norse literature for a good dose of Loki's sexual exploits (from eschatological to scatological).
If you don't know it, look into it. To this end, if you happen to be as ignorant as I, don't be afraid to ask questions, lots and lots of questions, every time Dr. Tucker mentions a term you're unfamiliar with. You'll be in good company, because there will always be other people who won't know what 'periphrasis' is, or who the Jutes were, or even, maybe, what 'alliteration' is. And if you don't know how to pronounce 'chaise lounge,' no fear, you'll learn, because scholarly asides are what philology is all about.
Dr. Tucker does a lot to give newling students a bit of grounding in basic linguistics: vowel and consonant charts, pronunciation guides and 'paradigms' (another wonderful term I'd never heard before this class). He also introduces short poems almost right way, which allows for some immediate rewards. If you're already a stellar linguist, take a deep breath, or skip the class. Conversely, if you're blinded by tears of frustration, take a deep breath, because the only way to learn Old English (or any language) is to just jump in and swim around. At worst you'll become much better at Modern English grammar; at best you'll find the long view opening up on works of literature, times and places you'd otherwise have little access to.
If things haven't changed since I took the course, be prepared for a slightly disorganized coursepack. I had to work hard to keep my notes and homework organized. Also, as compact and charming as Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Grammaris, I suggest augmenting it by using the internet to access one the many online OE dictionaries now available; also, using interlinear hypertext versions of poems is a powerful technique, because you can make instantaneous close comparisons between the OE and Modern English (Oxford's hypertext coursepack is a fantastic example). If you're a visual learner this is a must.
Besides branching out from the course textbooks, use the internet to learn more about medieval and classical milieus, always keeping in mind that there are no definitive authorities out there. What it says on one site will be different from another; a lot of this has to do with that whole 'distances of time and space' thing. But even the Wikipedia entry on Old English is enlightening for those who are starting from scratch. Also, if you ever get the chance, go to one of Benjamin Bagby's live performances of 'Beowulf'. It is electrifying.
The very first thing you must do in the course is to grind into your brain what Cases are. What they are, why they are, how they work. If you don't really, really come to understand what the function of the Genitive is, for example, you will get precisely no where in the course. Read Modern English examples of each Case, read Old English examples of each Case, read multiple definitions of each Case. And get a 'feel' for what the Cases are: explicit definitions aren't enough: one also needs an implicit feel for the functions of Cases. If you analogize the four Cases as kinetic movements, for example, the Nominal noun might be outgoing, Accusative receiving, Genitive taking, and Dative as positioning or as the means of the verb. All this may sound unintelligible, but it's very important: learn what Cases mean. Make yourself understand Cases and other concerns will fall into place.
To survive this course, the number one most important thing you must be prepared to do is: MEMORIZE, MEMORIZE, MEMORIZE!! This is the bottom line. Unless you have a photographic memory, the only way to really become competent at translating, and to do well on tests, is to MEMORIZE(!!). I met with success when I memorized, and rather less so when I didn't. MEMORIZE(!!) articulation charts, case functions, paradigms, ablaut progressions and verb groups or classes, and vocabulary. For me that meant copying it all down again and again for pages, and also repeating it aloud until everyone in the house knew it too. Tactile and auditory learning at its most hard-nosed.
Group work. To counterbalance the demands of MEMORIZATION(!!), one of the most rewarding practices for me was working with others students on homework: with a small circle of people to argue with, check inflexions, vocabulary, and muse over which of many possible lexical senses one should choose for each word, things feel much more lively, and it can be a lot of fun. When translating, be sure to translate from Modern English to Old English as well as the reverse: it's much more difficult and therefore very good for you. Four people, a wireless laptop, and a jug of micro-brewery beer is a great way to accomplish lots of Old English homework.Besides MEMORIZATION, really the only other thing you must have to get by in this course is a real joy in language and literature. This is the one big requirement (besides English 340) for English 341 as well. One of my favourite Old English moments was the last day of class in 341. We finished translating the last few lines of 'Beowulf', and for a brief moment, I really heard and saw and felt the meaning and drama of the poem in its original language. So a good imagination doesn't go amiss either. From the sounds to the words, grammar to poetry—if one word suggests stories, and you like the multiple possibilities of interpretation when you translate poetry and prose, and you find the mentalities of those who really, really believed that dragons existed fascinating, or at least funny—you're on your way.