The Sowdone of Babylone, a fifteenth-century English metrical romance, one of the group of poems designated as Charlemagne romances, was last edited in 1881 for the Early English Text Society by Emil Hausknecht. This poem, which possesses considerable literary merit, is in need of a modern critical edition, incorporating critical principles and philological researches not accessible to its nineteenth-century editor. This dissertation consists of all the essential contributions toward such a new edition, with the exception of a new text.
The work is first of all described in its manuscript form and the language and script are examined for purposes of establishing an approximate date for composition. Then, the diverse sources of the Sowdone are identified as its place in the descent of the Charlemagne epic in English. The metrical scheme and poetic practices of the poet are next reviewed before moving on to an examination of the style and language patterns employed for the specific purposes of this didactic, militantly religious work. This latter chapter leads directly into a review of the structure and characterization of the Sowdone. This is followed by a concluding chapter which views the poem in its literary and historical context.
Appended to the above-mentioned critical study are a set of Explanatory Notes and another of Textual Notes. Hausknecht's original text follows.