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Evolving English at the British Library
Feb. 15th, 2011 07:26 pmYesterday was library day. I was in London from 10am to 6pm and visited three libraries. Thankfully, they all had the items I needed.
When I came to the British library I did a little detour to their Evolving English exhibition. I'm very glad I did: the first part was almost a medievalist's wet dream. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (the "Vikings raid Lindisfarne in AD793"-page)! The first page of Beowulf! Sumer is icumen in! one of the earlier (earliest?) editions of Canterbury tales! Hoccleve's Regiment of princes (with the illustration of Chaucer)! The exhibition also included early dictionaries (foreign languages (including native american languages) and slang) and bibles as well as several more recent items (i.e. later postmedieval and up to present) that I never bothered looking at - after all, I was in London for work, not pleasure per se.
The exhibitions ends on the 3rd of April, so there's still some time to see it.
When I came to the British library I did a little detour to their Evolving English exhibition. I'm very glad I did: the first part was almost a medievalist's wet dream. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (the "Vikings raid Lindisfarne in AD793"-page)! The first page of Beowulf! Sumer is icumen in! one of the earlier (earliest?) editions of Canterbury tales! Hoccleve's Regiment of princes (with the illustration of Chaucer)! The exhibition also included early dictionaries (foreign languages (including native american languages) and slang) and bibles as well as several more recent items (i.e. later postmedieval and up to present) that I never bothered looking at - after all, I was in London for work, not pleasure per se.
The exhibitions ends on the 3rd of April, so there's still some time to see it.