Ælfric’s Linguistic and Stylistic Alterations in his Adaptations from the Old English Boethius

Abstract

AElfric’s Nativitas Domini and De Auguriis, which are included in his Lives of Saints collection, are partly adapted from the Old English prose translation of Boethius’s De consolatione Philosophiae. This article examines linguistic features and stylistic qualities of AElfric’s adaptations with special reference to his modification and improvements of the Old English Boethius. AElfric transposes prose written in early Old English into prose of the Late West Saxon standard in terms of lexicon, morphology and syntax. He also makes alterations in order to fit his original to his alliterative style. Furthermore, he effectively exploits formal stylistic devices, creating parallelism and introducing chiasmus and simile. On the other hand, he deletes redundancy found in the Old English Boethius. It is concluded that AElfric produced prose in highly sophisticated style, which surpasses the precedent.