British Writer Joseph Bosworth’s Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language (1838) and the Development of Anglo-Saxon Studies

FAIN: FB-57074-13

Dabney A. Bankert
James Madison University (Harrisonburg, VA 22807-0001)

My monograph is the first to study the origins, compilation, and influence of Joseph Bosworth’s seminal A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language, and the first to investigate the historical and cultural context of its creation. First published by Bosworth in 1838, revised and expanded by T. Northcote Toller between 1878-1921, Bosworth-Toller (as it is called) has done much to define, literally, our understanding of the Old English language and remains the only comprehensive Old English dictionary now available to students and scholars. Influencing almost every edition and translation of Old English texts, and directly or indirectly shaping much of the lexicographical scholarship and literary criticism to this day, its influence extends beyond the discipline. Generations of students have absorbed the cultural ideas conveyed by its lexicon in translations of Beowulf and other Old English texts; and historians of the English language work in its long shadow.

Associated Products

“Benjamin Thorpe’s Influence on Joseph Bosworth’s A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language,” Old (Book Section)
Title: “Benjamin Thorpe’s Influence on Joseph Bosworth’s A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language,” Old
Author: Dabney A. Bankert
Editor: Lindy Brady
Abstract: This essay examines the extensive influence of Benjamin Thorpe's Anglo-Saxon publications on Joseph Bosworth's Anglo-Saxon dictionary projects between 1830-1860, and it traces evidence of the puzzling relationship between the two men and between Bosworth and Thorpe's impoverished widow after his death.
Year: 2021
Access Model: book
Publisher: Arizona Center for Medieval Studies
Book Title: Old English Tradition: Essays in Honor of J.R. Hall
ISBN: 978-0-86698-63

“Defining the Anglo-Saxon World: The Making of Joseph Bosworth’s Dictionary” (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: “Defining the Anglo-Saxon World: The Making of Joseph Bosworth’s Dictionary”
Abstract: Of all the misconceptions we hold about the making of Joseph Bosworth’s Anglo-Saxon dictionary, one of the most tenacious is that Bosworth, like Samuel Johnson, was its “author.” In fact, he was a dedicated opportunist with an entrepreneurial flair for enlisting the talents of scores of scholars, antiquarians, and gentlemanly lexical dabblers. Two men to whom he owes uniquely significant debts?Joseph Webb and C.H. Stahl?have remained virtually if not entirely unknown; examining their contributions raises important questions about a mythology of the dictionary’s origins disseminated by nineteenth-century reviews and obituaries.
Author: Dabney A. Bankert
Date: 10/26/2015
Location: University of Toronto, Centre for Medieval Studies and the Dictionary of Old English, Toronto
Primary URL: http://www.pims.ca/academics/calendar-of-events/event/lecture-defining-the-anglo-saxon-world-the-making-of-joseph-bosworth-s-dictionary-
Primary URL Description: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies Calendar, University of Toronto
Secondary URL: http://www.doe.utoronto.ca/pages/report.html
Secondary URL Description: Progress Report, Dictionary of Old English 2015-2016

Philology in Turbulent Times: Philology in Turbulent Times: Joseph Bosworth, His Dictionary, and the Recovery of Old English (Book)
Title: Philology in Turbulent Times: Philology in Turbulent Times: Joseph Bosworth, His Dictionary, and the Recovery of Old English
Author: Dabney A. Bankert
Abstract: Language was widely viewed as flawed. The denigration proved widespread by the time T. Northcote Toller revised it in 1898. Critics, however, knew very little about the creation of the Dictionary or the struggles of its creators. This book is a project of recovery: it situates the Dictionary culturally and historically, reconstructing that history from a wealth of archival materials – surviving manuscripts, correspondence, annotated books, and other documents. It opens up a larger investigation into the central role played by Joseph Bosworth’s work in the birth and growth of Old English studies, or Anglo-Saxon studies as it was called, in the nineteenth century, a period during which competing ideologies and methodologies clashed, particularly in England. And it also examines the challenges Toller faced in completing the major revision of the Dictionary after Bosworth’s death, as well as his compilation of its major Supplement in 1921. Philology in Turbulent Times aims to rectify widespread disciplinary ignorance of the Dictionary’s conception, compilation, and publication, and to examine its impact on the development of the discipline.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://pims.ca/publication/isbn-978-0-88844-910-8/
Primary URL Description: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies website. Book listing
Access Model: Purchase
Publisher: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 978-0-88844-91
Copy sent to NEH?: No

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