Unit I, Module II, P 1 MODULE II Features of Anglo-Saxon Poetry
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Wilkinson 1 Wilkinson 2
Wilkinson 1 Wilkinson 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………...………….2 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………......3 CHAPTER ONE: TWO HISTORIES…………………………………………………...12 CHAPTER TWO: DEJECTION AND DESPONDENCY IN THE WANDERER……...30 CHAPTER THREE: WHO IS THE WANDERER? WHAT IS THE WANDERER?......49 WORKS CITED………………………………………………………………………....68 Wilkinson 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Had it not been for the following people, I would have been unable to envision, begin, or complete this project: Dr. Gale Sigal, who bore my endless impositions with laughter and even cheer, and who as the director of this thesis continually encouraged me to research vigorously, to write clearly, to think critically, to progress cautiously, and above all to see it to completion. Dr. Gillian Overing, who first introduced me to the endless frustration and satisfaction that marks the study of Old English, and who consistently demonstrated to me through her pedagogical method, personal interactions, and scholarly achievement, that it is possible to be simultaneously a rigorous scholar, creative thinker, and wonderful person. Dr. Omaar Hena, for agreeing to be my reader, for critical thinking, personal and professional encouragement, and the willing energy that you seem to bring to all things. William Holden, my friend and sponsor, whose fierce and consuming passion for life has shown me, among other things, an alternative to the futility of despair. Shelby Sleight and Patrick Malarkey, for commiseration, for constantly raising the level of intellectual discussion, for wine and beer, for movies and music, and for a place to stay, among other things. Most of all, for being my friends. And Angie, who endured all my despondency with patience, who covered all my dejection with compassion, and who every day joined me as a friend in “exile.” I am thankful that we can wander this life together. -
The Cambridge Old English Reader
The Cambridge Old English Reader RICHARD MARSDEN School of English Studies University of Nottingham published by the press syndicate of the university of cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom cambridge university press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge, CB2 2RU, UK 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia Ruiz de Alarc´on 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa http://www.cambridge.org c Cambridge University Press 2004 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2004 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge Typeface Times 10/13 pt System LATEX2ε [TB] A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Marsden, Richard. The Cambridge Old English reader / Richard Marsden. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0 521 45426 3 (hardback) – ISBN 0 521 45612 6 (paperback) 1. English language – Old English, ca. 450–1100 – Readers. 2. Anglo-Saxons – Literary collections. 3. Anglo-Saxons – Sources. I. Title. PE137.M46 2003 429.86421–dc21 2003043579 ISBN 0 521 45426 3 hardback ISBN 0 521 45612 6 paperback Contents Preface page ix List of abbreviations xi Introduction xv The writing and pronunciation -
Medieval Medievalisms in the Old English Ruin
• Via Rome: Medieval Medievalisms in the Old English Ruin Rory G. Critten University of Lausanne Lausanne, Switzerland The recent publication of The Cambridge Companion to Medievalism under the editorship of Louise D’Arcens marks a crowning moment in the history of a discipline whose institutional backing has not always been so strong.1 For some time now, medievalism studies have been enjoying increasing respect for the insights that they can offer into matters ranging from periodization, colonization, and nationalism, to the potentially mutual imbrication of good scholarship and good fun.2 Since the majority of the contributors to the new Cambridge Companion work both in what we might call traditional medieval studies as well as in medievalism studies, the volume also serves as evidence for the rapprochement between these two fields. A significant facilitating factor in this regard has been a willingness shared across the disciplines to conceive of time not solely in linear terms. Researchers in both camps have met over the recognition that the present, in Carolyn Dinshaw’s words, “is not a singular, fleeting moment but comprises relations to other times, other people, other worlds.”3 Viewed from this perspective, the procedures of both medieval and medievalist texts can be seen to correspond, and the distinc- tion between what is medieval and what comes afterwards is blurred. These intertwining ideas have a rich history of their own. Even in their earliest iterations, medievalism studies highlighted the extent to which paying attention -
Anglo-Saxon Literary Landscapes Literary Anglo-Saxon
ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES IN PRE-MODERN CULTURES Estes Anglo-Saxon Literary Landscapes Heide Estes Anglo-Saxon Literary Landscapes Ecotheory and the Environmental Imagination Anglo-Saxon Literary Landscapes Environmental Humanities in Pre‑modern Cultures This series in environmental humanities offers approaches to medieval, early modern, and global pre-industrial cultures from interdisciplinary environmental perspectives. We invite submissions (both monographs and edited collections) in the fields of ecocriticism, specifically ecofeminism and new ecocritical analyses of under-represented literatures; queer ecologies; posthumanism; waste studies; environmental history; environmental archaeology; animal studies and zooarchaeology; landscape studies; ‘blue humanities’, and studies of environmental/natural disasters and change and their effects on pre-modern cultures. Series Editor Heide Estes, University of Cambridge and Monmouth University Editorial Board Steven Mentz, St. John’s University Gillian Overing, Wake Forest University Philip Slavin, University of Kent Anglo-Saxon Literary Landscapes Ecotheory and the Environmental Imagination Heide Estes Amsterdam University Press Cover illustration: © Douglas Morse Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Layout: Crius Group, Hulshout Amsterdam University Press English-language titles are distributed in the US and Canada by the University of Chicago Press. isbn 978 90 8964 944 7 e-isbn 978 90 4852 838 7 doi 10.5117/9789089649447 nur 617 | 684 | 940 Creative Commons License CC BY NC ND (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0) The author / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2017 Some rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, any part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise). -
Treebeard's List – Maxims II
Pre-print extract from S. Lee and E. Solopova, The Keys of Middle-earth: Discovering Medieval Literature through the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien (Palgrave, 2005). To purchase full book go to: http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=27039 0. 4.9 Treebeard’s List – Maxims II (TT, ‘Treebeard’) 4.9.1 Plot Summary Merry and Pippin, having escaped the Orcs, flee into Fangorn’s forest, where they encounter Treebeard, the Ent. Treebeard is puzzled as to what the two Hobbits are and recites an ancient poem which lists the various flora and fauna of Middle-earth. Christopher Tolkien (Treason, pp. 411-21) notes that the character of Treebeard, and the Ents themselves, seem to have come late to Tolkien, and he puzzled over how they would fit into the story. 4.9.2 Medieval Text: Maxims II Maxims II is found in a British Library manuscript – Cotton MS Tiberius B.i (ff. 115r-v). It’s dating is troublesome, and the nature of the poem suggests ancient folklore passed down from generation to generation (as indeed Treebeard’s poem was). Cassidy and Ringler argue that it ‘probably reached its present form in the tenth century or slightly earlier, though some of the material in it may be much older’ (1974, p. 373). It is called Maxims II because a very similar poem (Maxims I) appears in ‘The Exeter Book’. A ‘Maxim’, according to the OED is: ‘A rule or principle of conduct. Also: a pithily expressed precept of morality or prudence (spec. occurring in Old English verse); such a precept as a literary form.’ Marsden (2004, p. -
Cain's Kin and Abel's Blood: Beowulf 1361-4
Opticon1826, Issue 9, Autumn 2010 CAIN’S KIN AND ABEL’S BLOOD: BEOWULF 1361-4 By Michael D.J. Bintley Amongst the various texts which are thought to have influenced the depiction of Grendel’s mere in Beowulf, the possibility has not yet been considered that the poet also drew upon a tradition associated with Grendel’s descent from Cain, also to be found in the composite Genesis poem of the Junius manuscript (Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Junius 11, SC 5123), and Aldhelm’s Carmen de virginitate. This connection only becomes apparent upon closer examination of the woodland grove overhanging the refuge in Grendel’s fens. Of the many trees that appear in Old English literature, few can be as sinister as these. These trees contribute memorably to Hrothgar’s description of the mere: Nis þæt feor heonon milgemearces þæt se mere standeð; ofer þæm hongiað hrinde bearwas, wudu wyrtum fæst wæter oferhelmað. It is not far hence in a measure of miles that the mere stands; over it hang frosty trees, a wood fast in its roots overshadows the water. (Beowulf 1361-4)1 These trees appear once again in the description of the journey to the mere following the attack by Grendel’s mother: Ofereode þa æþelinga bearn steap stanhliðo, stige nearwe, enge anpaðas, uncuð gelad, neowle næssas, nicorhusa fela; he feara sum beforan gengde wisra monna wong sceawian, oþ þæt he færinga fyrgenbeamas ofer harne stan helonian funde wynleasne wudu; wæter under stod dreorig on gedrefed. Then went those sons of nobles over steep and stony slopes, thin ascending paths, narrow single tracks, unknown ways, precipitous cliffs, many dwellings of water-monsters. -
The Textin the Community
The in the Text Community Essays on Medieval Works, Manuscripts, Authors, and Readers edited by jill mann & maura nolan University of Notre Dame Press Q Notre Dame, Indiana Copyright © 2006 by University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 www.undpress.nd.edu All Rights Reserved Designed by Jane Oslislo Set in 9.9/13.8 Janson by Four Star Books Printed in Hong Kong by Kings Time Printing Press, Ltd. Library of Congress Cataloging in-Publication Data The text in the community : essays on medieval works, manuscripts, authors, and readers / edited by Jill Mann and Maura Nolan. p. cm. Includes index. isbn 0-268-03495-8 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn 0-268-03496-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Literature, Medieval—History and criticism. 2. Manuscripts, Medieval—History. I. Mann, Jill. II. Nolan, Maura. pn671.t38 2006 809'.02—dc22 2005035128 ∞This book is printed on acid-free paper. contents List of Illustrations vii List of Contributors xi Abbreviations List xiii Acknowledgments xv Introduction 1 maura nolan 1 Versifying the Bible in the Middle Ages 11 michael lapidge 2 “He Knew Nat Catoun”: Medieval School-Texts and Middle English Literature 41 jill mann 3 Computing Cynewulf: The Judith-Connection 75 andy orchard Q vi R Contents 4 The Contexts of Notre Dame 67 107 a.s.g. edwards 5 The Haunted Text: Ghostly Reflections in A Mirror to Devout People 129 vincent gillespie 6 The Visual Environment of Carthusian Texts: Decoration and Illustration in Notre Dame 67 173 jessica brantley 7 The Knight and the Rose: French Manuscripts in the Notre Dame Library 217 maureen boulton 8 The Meditations on the Life of Christ: An Illuminated Fourteenth-Century Italian Manuscript at the University of Notre Dame 237 dianne phillips Index of Manuscripts 283 General Index 287 list of illustrations plate 1. -
Intertextuality of Deor
Vol. 4(8), pp. 132-138, October, 2013 DOI: 10.5897/JLC11.080 Journal of Languages and Culture ISSN 2141-6540 © 2013 Academic Journals http://www.academicjournals.org/JLC Review Intertextuality of Deor Raimondo Murgia Tallinn University, Narva mnt 25, 10120 Tallinn, Estonia. Accepted 22 November, 2012 The Deor is a poem found in the Exeter Book and included in the Old English elegies. The main purpose of this contribution is to highlight the possible intertextual links of the poem. After an outline of the old English elegies and a brief review of the most significant passages from the elegies, this short poem will be analyzed stanza by stanza. An attempt will be made to demonstrate that the various interpretations of the text depend on particular keywords that require that the readers to share the same time and space coordinates as the author. The personal names are the most important clues for interpretation. The problem is that they have been emended differently according to the editors and that the reader is supposed to know the referent hinted by those particular names. Key words: Old English elegies, Exeter Book, Deor, intertextuality. INTRODUCTION OF THE OLD ENGLISH ELEGIES It must be underlined that the term „elegy‟ applying to old definition of Old English elegy is Greenfield‟s (1965): “a English (hereafter OE) poetry could be misleading since relatively short reflective or dramatic poem embodying a one would expect the meter of such poetry to be the contrastive pattern of loss and consolation, ostensibly same as the Greek and Latin Elegies, in which their based upon a specific personal experience or observa- elegiac distich (Pinotti, 2002) points out that in the fourth tion, and expressing an attitude towards that experience”. -
Abstract Old English Elegies: Language and Genre
ABSTRACT OLD ENGLISH ELEGIES: LANGUAGE AND GENRE Stephanie Opfer, PhD Department of English Northern Illinois University, 2017 Dr. Susan E. Deskis, Director The Old English elegies include a group of poems found in the Exeter Book manuscript that have traditionally been treated as a single genre due to their general sense of lament – The Wanderer, The Seafarer, The Riming Poem, Deor, Wulf and Eadwacer, The Wife’s Lament, Resignation, Riddle 60, The Husband’s Message, and The Ruin. In this study, I conduct a linguistic stylistic analysis of all ten poems using systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and a variety of computational and linguistic tools: Lexomics, Voyant, and Microsoft Excel. My results focus on three characteristics of the poetry: (1) the similarity of the linguistic style within the poems, measured by Lexomics; (2) an oscillation between first- and third-person clausal Themes, measured using SFL analysis; and (3) themes in the lexical categorization, measured through detailed lexical analysis. In the end, my methodology creates a new and more nuanced definition of the elegy: a relatively short reflective or dramatic poem, similar in style and content to other elegiac poems, that alternates between first- and third-person perspectives and includes (1) themes of exile; (2) imagery of water or the sea, the earth, and/or the weather; and (3) words expressing both joy and sorrow. Ultimately, I argue for a recategorization of only five poems as “Old English elegies”: The Wanderer, The Seafarer, Wulf and Eadwacer, The Wife’s Lament, and The Riming Poem. NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY DE KALB, ILLINOIS MAY 2017 OLD ENGLISH ELEGIES: LANGUAGE AND GENRE BY STEPHANIE OPFER ©2017 Stephanie Opfer A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH Doctoral Director: Dr. -
Selim 19.Indb
EORÐSCRÆF, EGLOND AND ISCEALDNE SÆ: LANDSCAPE, LITERALISM AND METAPHOR IN SOME OLD ENGLISH ELEGIES Abstract: This article explores the depictions of landscape in the Old English elegies The Wife’s Lament, Wulf and Eadwacer, The Wanderer and The Seafarer. For many years scholars have debated how to interpret these depictions and have been deeply divided over whether landscape is to be understood literally or metaphorically in Old English poetry. This article reassesses these poems to argue for a more complex interaction between the literal and fi gurative aspects of landscape setting than has thus far been appreciated. Keywords: landscape, Old English poetry, The Wife’s Lament, Wulf and Eadwacer, The Wanderer, The Seafarer, isolation. Resumen: Este artículo explora las descripciones paisajísticas en las elegías anglosajonas The Wife’s Lament, Wulf and Eadwacer, The Wanderer y The Seafarer. Durante muchos años los estudiosos han debatido cómo interpretar estas descripciones y se han dividido acerca de si en la poesía anglosajona el paisaje debe entenderse literal o metafóricamente. Este artículo reconsidera estos poemas y defi ende una interacción más compleja entre los aspectos literales y fi gurativos de escenario paisajístico de lo que se ha hecho hasta ahora. Palabras clave: paisaje, poesía anglosajona, The Wife’s Lament, Wulf and Eadwacer, The Wanderer, The Seafarer, aislamiento. 1 Introduction – Literal and Metaphorical Landscapes andscape settings in Old English poetry have been a subject of heated debate throughout the twentieth Lcentury, -
Christianity and Oral Culture in Anglo-Saxon Verse
Oral Tradition, 24/2 (2009): 293-318 The Word Made Flesh: Christianity and Oral Culture in Anglo-Saxon Verse Andy Orchard As far as the history of English literature goes, in the beginning was Cædmon’s Hymn, and Cædmon’s Hymn, at least as an inaugural event, seems something of a damp squib.1 Not just because Bede’s description of the unexpected inspiration of the apparently Celtic-named putative parent of English verse has so many analogues in the form of similar and sometimes seemingly more miraculous stories (see, for examples, Atherton 2002; Ireland 1987; Lester 1974; O’Donnell 2005:29-60 and 191-202), including a Latin autobiographical account of the “inspiration” of the drunk Symphosius (whose Greek-derived name means “drinking-party animal” or suchlike), supposedly similarly spurred to song at a much earlier North African booze-up of his own, the narrative of which seems to have been known in Anglo-Saxon England at around the same time Cædmon took his fateful walk to commune with the common herd (Orchard forthcoming a). And not just because for many readers there is a lingering sense of disappointment on first acquaintance, since however well-constructed we are increasingly told that Cædmon’s Hymn may be (Howlett 1974; Conway 1995; but see O’Donnell 2005:179-86), the fact that the repetition of eight so seemingly trite and formulaic epithets for God (seven of them different, however) has seemed to some a tad excessive in a poem of only nine lines (Fry 1974 and 1981; Stanley 1995). Still further factors seem to undermine the iconic status of Cædmon’s Hymn, including its variant forms and the rumbling (if unlikely) suggestions that it is no more than a back-translation from Bede’s somehow superior Latin, at the margins of which it so often appears in the manuscripts (Kiernan 1990; Isaac 1997). -
Your Name Here
THE TRANSFORMING SELF AND OTHERWORLDLY WISDOM: SOURCES OF POETIC INSPIRATION IN MEDIEVAL NORTHWEST EUROPE by TIMOTHY HANNON (Under the Direction of Katharina Wilson) ABSTRACT Certain tales of the medieval Norse, Anglo-Saxons, Irish and Welsh explain the source of poetic inspiration as existing in a world apart, whether that be in the realm of the gods, in the Celtic Otherworld, or with the Christian God. Generally, each culture follows a similar pattern in explaining the process of inspiration, beginning with a binding or a containment in the physical world, followed by danger-tinged contemplation, and eventually leading to communication with the source of poetry. The tales of these four cultures are discussed in terms of this schemata and compared with one another, eventually leading towards an understanding of wisdom that poetic composition may bring to a poet. INDEX WORDS: Medieval, Poetic inspiration, Inspiration, Poetry, Myth, Legend, Norse, Óðinn, Odin, Anglo-Saxon, Irish, Welsh, Medieval England, Medieval Ireland, Medieval Wales, Medieval Iceland, Medieval Scandinavia, Medieval poetry, Medieval Christianity, Taliesin, Finn, Beowulf THE TRANSFORMING SELF AND OTHERWORLDLY WISDOM: SOURCES OF POETIC INSPIRATION IN MEDIEVAL NORTHWEST EUROPE by TIMOTHY HANNON B.A, The College of New Jersey, 2005 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS ATHENS, GEORGIA 2010 © 2010 Timothy Hannon All Rights Reserved THE TRANSFORMING SELF AND OTHERWORLDLY WISDOM: SOURCES OF POETIC INSPIRATION IN MEDIEVAL NORTHWEST EUROPE by TIMOTHY HANNON Major Professor: Katharina Wilson Committee: Elissa Henken Jonathan Evans Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2010 DEDICATION I dedicate this thesis to the literature to which gave it existence: medieval poetry and prose.