For their inspired teaching, my sincere thanks to Peggy Knapp of Carnegie Mellon
University, John Miles Foley of the Center for Studies in Oral Tradition at
the University of Missouri-Columbia, Martin Camargo of the University of Illinois
and Allen J. Frantzen of Loyola University Chicago.
My gratitude also goes out to my colleagues in the English department at Wheaton College: Deyonne Bryant, Claire Buck, Shawn Christian, Beverly Lyon Clark, Sam Coale, Katherine Conway, Susan Dearing, Paula Krebs, Lisa Lebduska, Charlotte Meehan, Dick Pearce, Sheila Shaw, Pam Stafford, Josh Stenger, Sue Standing and Kathleen Vogt.
Thanks also to Provost Susanne Woods as well as to Marilyn Todesco, Libby Bixby and Beth Affanato. Kathryn Powell, Donald Scragg, Steve Harris and the scholars of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists at the 1999 convention at the University of Notre Dame all made many corrections and useful suggestions. The King Alfred computer program was inspired by a suggestion from David I. Drout.
My student collaborators, David Dudek (who programmed the first version of King
Alfred) and Rachel Kapelle (who found and parsed the sentences) not only contributed
significantly to the project but also encouraged me to continue to work on it.
Additional help came from Laura Kalafarski.
Wheaton's Library, Technology and Learning Committee partially funded the creation of the grammar with a generous stipend, and the original development of the King Alfred program was funded by a Gebbie student/faculty research grant. Jenny Lund encouraged me to begin work on the program. Mars faculty/student research stipends have supported the improvement and re-development of King Alfred. I am grateful to Wheaton College for the continued support of this and other projects.
I want to especially thank my current collaborators Lisa Michaud and Bruce Gilchrist.
Lisa has completely re-written King Alfred, and the new version is an enormous
improvement. Bruce has written the chapter on phonology, compiled the glossary
of grammatical terms and has made improvements on every page of the grammar.
My wife, Raquel M. D'Oyen, my daughter Rhys and my son Mitchell have generously
allowed me the time and given me the inspiration to continue this work.
Finally, all of my students who have suffered through the various versions of
King Alfred and King Alfred’s Grammar (learning Anglo-Saxon on the way)
in many ways wrote this book through their honest criticisms. I am grateful
for all of their hard work and enthusiasm.
Michael D.C. Drout
Wheaton College and Dedham, Mass.
August 2005