Old English Poetry from Manuscript to Message
By (author) Peter Lucas
Explores a variety of contexts of Old English poetry, including manuscript studies, metre, textual problems, and broader themes and readings.
By comparison with Latin Europe, Anglo-Saxon civilization is notable for the amount of literature preserved in contemporary manuscripts in the vernacular language, formerly called ‘Anglo-Saxon’ but now more usually called ‘Old English’. This literature includes some remarkable poetry, which is the subject of the present collection of essays. Some of the earliest poems may well have been written at a time when northern England held the intellectual leadership of Europe. The approach is holistic, investigating important issues in the manuscripts that affect the integrity of the texts to be studied or the way they relate to each other, examining metrical issues that affect the way the poems are appreciated for their compositional skill, studying particular textual problems that require elucidation or even emendation to make the meaning clear, and finally offering readings of particular poems focussing on themes that are central to Old English poetry. A postscript examines Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky, which is presented as a ‘Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry’.
Introduction Section A Manuscripts Foreword 1. The Place of Judith in the Beowulf-Manuscript 2. The Vercelli Book Revisited 3. The Structure of the Junius Manuscript: Places of Possible Loss 4. On the Incomplete Ending of Daniel and the Addition of Christ and Satan to MS Junius 11 Section B Metre Foreword 5. Some Aspects of the Interaction between Verse Grammar and Metre in Old English Poetry 6. On the Ro?le of Some Adverbs in Old English Verse Grammar 7. The Metrical Epilogue to the Alfredian Pastoral Care: A Postscript from Junius 8. Franciscus Junius and the Versification of Judith Section C Textual Problems Foreword 9. Beowulf 214: eolet Aet ende 10. Andreas 733b 11. Christ III 1476b 12. The Seafarer 62b, anfloga: Lone Ranger or Away-day Flier? 13. Genesis B 623-5: Part of the Speech to Eve? 14. Exodus 480: mod gerymde 15. Exodus 265: Aegnian 16. Daniel 276 Section D Readings Foreword 17. Loyalty and Obedience in the Old English Genesis and the Interpolation of Genesis B into Genesis A 18. Sengeley in synglere. The Language of the Loner: From Splendid Isolation to 'Individual' in Early English Poetry? 19. The Cross in Exodus 20. Easter, the Death of Saint Guthlac and the Liturgy for Holy Saturday in Felix's Vita and the Old English Guthlac B 21. Judith and the Woman Hero Section E Postscript 22. From Jabberwocky back to Old English: Nonsense, Anglo-Saxon and Oxford Index
- By (author) Peter Lucas
Other Titles in this Series
Transforming the Medieval World
Uses of Pragmatic Literacy in the Middle Ages (A CD-ROM and Book)
Volume 6
Ruling the Script in the Middle Ages
Formal Aspects of Written Communication (Books, Charters, and Inscriptions)
Volume 35
Diplomatics in the Netherlands
The Use, Editing, and Study of Charters by Dutch Historians from the Middle Ages to the Present
Volume 63
Epigraphic Literacy and Christian Identity
Modes of Written Discourse in the Newly Christian European North
Volume 4
Sins of the Tongue in the Medieval West
Sinful, Unethical, and Criminal Words in Middle Dutch (1300-1550)
Volume 36
Strategies of Writing
Studies on Text and Trust in the Middle Ages: Papers from Trust in Writing in the Middle Ages (Utrecht, 28-29 November 2002)
Volume 13
Looking Back from the Invention of Printing
Mothers and the Teaching of Reading in the Middle Ages
Volume 40
Homo Legens
Styles et pratiques de lecture: Analyses comparees des traditions orales et ecrites au Moyen Age / Styles and Practices of Reading: Comparative Analyses of Oral and Written Traditions in the Middle Ages
Volume 26
Writing Names in Medieval Sacred Spaces
Inscriptions in the West, from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages
Volume 56
Similar Books
A Late Antique Harrowing of Hell and Its Medieval Reception
Eusebius of Alexandria's Sermons 15 and 17 (CPG 5524; 5526) and their Latin Rewritings
Volume 99
Behind the Scenes of Medieval Roofs
An Overview of the Roofing Systems of Italian Churches
Volume 90
Innovation and Medieval Communities
The Circulation of Ideas and Practices in and out of the Town (1200-1500)
Volume 63
Linguistic and Cultural Dynamics in a Frontier Society
New Perspectives on Northeastern Bavaria and Western Bohemia in the Early Middle Ages
Volume 9
Medieval Debates on Foreknowledge: Future Contingents, Prophecy, and Divination
Acts of the XXVII Annual Colloquium of the SIEPM, Trento 12-15 September 2023
Volume 31
Medieval Yeghegis, Armenia
History, Archaeology, Society. Local Multiplicities and Global Connections of a Rural Centre on the Silk Road(s)
