History Of Old English Literature Research Articles

God's Exiles and English Verse: On the Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry by John D. Niles

Reviewed by: God's Exiles and English Verse: On the Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry by John D. Niles Greg Waite Niles, John D., God's Exiles and English Verse: On the Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry, Exeter, University of Exeter Press, 2019; cloth; pp. xv, 288; R.R.P. £75.00; ISBN 9781905816095. John Niles contextualizes the 'Exeter Anthology' (Exeter, Cathedral Library, MS 3501) in the English Benedictine reform, and reads it as a collection of poems chosen purposefully to celebrate and teach 'God's exiles', the monks and nuns whose lives of heroic self-denial and prayer anticipate their journey to a heavenly home. He argues that the poems are the work of 'craft-poets', or monastic writers schooled in theology, liturgy, and rhetoric both in Latin and in English. Niles proceeds along varied lines of literary analysis framed within a model of 'monastic poetics' (a term employed by Brian O'Camb in his 2009 University of Wisconsin– Madison doctoral thesis and his subsequent studies of Exeter poems, read in the light of the monastic reform). As Niles puts it, 'monastic poetics is […] a hybrid poetics, based on Latinate and Germanic models yet striving to achieve expansive new forms of expression in the medium of Old English alliterative verse' (p. 5). Part 1 of the book sets out the background of the Exeter Anthology in relation to later tenth-century reformed monastic culture. While the manuscript cannot be traced to a specific centre, Niles argues that it is the product of a literary culture in the south-west of England emanating from Glastonbury Abbey. Part 2 explores individual poems and how they relate to one another. Chapter 4, 'An Overview of the Book's Contents', surveys the poems in manuscript order. Niles argues for various principles of ordering, but the main one is hierarchical: the weightier items are placed first, establishing the encyclopedic scope of the work, encompassing the whole of creation. Within this structure, nevertheless, the volume's 'intratextuality' is enhanced by the separation of poems that might be considered closely related, such as Widsith and Deor. An outstanding part of this chapter is the exploration of ethopoeia and prosopopoeia under the headings 'The Voice of the Sage: A Father's Precepts and Related Poems' and 'Voices from the Germanic Past: Widsith and Related Poems'. Together with other methods of relating poems to one another, such as the exploration of 'keywords' in Chapter 8 (the words focused upon are sīþ 'journey', ellen 'courage', bōt 'redress' or 'recompense', and hām 'home'), or Chapter 9's 'Intratextual Hermeneutics', this book offers fresh and challenging insights into the poems of the Exeter Anthology that vindicate Nile's critical approach, even if questions remain about the thesis of origin. Niles often illustrates his readings with reference to key texts of the Benedictine reform, the Rule of Benedict itself, and the Regularis Concordia (see p. 101, for example, on the preparation of a body for burial). Yet many of the same points might be made with reference to passages from other texts such as Bede's Historia. That is to say, they involve widely accepted tenets and practices of English monasticism over a long period (whether strictly Benedictine or not). Niles claims that the Exeter Anthology poets can all 'reasonably be taken to have been active during the period c.880–970' (p. 23). 'c.970' is the terminus supplied [End Page 250] by the palaeographical dating of the Exeter manuscript. Presumably 'c.880' marks the beginning of Alfred's program of intellectual revival. In the light of Sisam's 1934 observations (in a review of the Exeter Book facsimile, reprinted in Studies in the History of Old English Literature, Oxford, 1953) that the Exeter Book is a fair copy of a pre-existing collection, and that its spellings signal a probable early West Saxon copying of the poems subsequent to their compilation, should not consideration be given to an Alfredian or earlier tenth-century context of production? Megginson's work (for example, his 1995 essay 'The Case against a "General Old English Poetic Dialect"') suggests that Sisam's views on this matter are not outmoded. Niles interestingly...

In Defence of the Textual Integrity of the Old English Resignation

Abstract Bliss & Frantzen’s (1976) paper against the previously assumed textual integrity of Resignation has been a watershed in research upon the poem. Nearly all subsequent studies and editions have followed their theory, the sole dissenting view being expressed by Klinck (1987, 1992). The present paper offers fresh evidence for the textual unity of the poem. First examined are codicological issues, whether the state of the manuscript suggests that a folio might be missing. Next analysed are the spellings of Resignation and its phonology, here the paper discusses peculiarities which both differentiate Resignation from its manuscript context and connect the two hypothetical parts of the text. Then the paper looks at the assumed cut-off point at l.69 to see if it may provide any evidence for textual discontinuity. Finally the whole Resignation, seen as a coherent poem, is placed in the history of Old English literature, with special attention being paid to the traditions of devotional texts and the Old English elegies.

A history of Old English literature

List of Illustrations vi Preface to the First Edition (2003) vii Preface to the Second Edition ix Abbreviations x Introduction Anglo-Saxon England and Its Literature: A Social History 1 1 The Chronology and Varieties of Old English Literature 42 2 Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 58 3 Literature of the Alfredian Period 83 4 Homilies 112 5 Saints Legends (Rachel S. Anderson) 133 6 Biblical Literature 157 7 Liturgical and Devotional Texts 177 8 Legal Texts 211 9 Scientific and Scholastic Texts 227 10 Wisdom Literature and Lyric Poetry 241 11 Germanic Legend and Heroic Lay 278 12 Additions, Annotations, and Marginalia 329 Conclusion Making Old English New: Anglo-Saxonism and the Cultural Work of Old English Literature 354 Works Cited 367 Index 481

Reviews: History in Transit: Experience, Identity, Critical Theory, Families of the King, Writing Identity in the, a History of Old English Literature, Imagining Robin Hood, Elizabethan Triumphal Processions, Shakespeare: National Poet-Playwright, Shakespeare and Republicanism, Literature, Gender and Politics during the English Civil War, Widows and Suitors in Early Modern English Comedy, Marriage in Seventeenth-Century English Political Thought, Gentility and the

Reviews: History in Transit: Experience, Identity, Critical Theory, Families of the King, Writing Identity in the, a History of Old English Literature, Imagining Robin Hood, Elizabethan Triumphal Processions, Shakespeare: National Poet-Playwright, Shakespeare and Republicanism, Literature, Gender and Politics during the English Civil War, Widows and Suitors in Early Modern English Comedy, Marriage in Seventeenth-Century English Political Thought, Gentility and the

Sex and Sexuality in Anglo-Saxon England: Essays in Memory of Daniel Gillmore Calder. Edited by carol pasternack and lisam. c. weston. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 277. Pp. xlix + 284. Tempe, AZ: Arizona Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2004. £36.

Daniel Calder, a leading Anglo-Saxonist at the time of his death in 1994, was particularly noted for his erudite and sensitive readings of Old English poetry, and for his co-authorship, with Stanley Greenfield, of the valuable A New Critical History of Old English Literature, and the significant Sources and Analogues of Old English Poetry, with Michael Allen. This volume pays tribute to his work with some essays at the cutting-edge of theoretically informed criticism. In a lengthy Introduction, the editors explore and analyse medieval sex and sexuality, reflecting on theories and constructions of heterosexuality, homosexuality, the constitutents of normative behaviours, and discourses of the body. They note that most of the studies published through the 1980s and 1990s pay only scant attention to earlier medieval literature—both Latin and Old English (though one might wonder why Old Norse material figures not at all in this cultural context, and not once in the entire volume). They attribute this partially to the few texts that ‘provide representations of sexual acts and desires’ (p. xxxiii). This narrow interpretation of what is textually necessary to determine or interpret ‘sex and sexuality’ leads to a rather rapid overview of Anglo-Saxonists’ attitudes to, and recent work on, these topics in recent years. The discussion at pp. xxxii–xxxvii thus intimates that evaluative legitimacy comes only from using the discourse of theory; such a claim, of course, enhances the newness of this collection of essays, ‘the first focusing entirely on sex and sexuality in Anglo-Saxon England’ (p. xlii). Throughout, though, Pasternack and Weston engage boldly in theorising and closely defining their terminology, a rare and welcome feature in current scholarship on sexuality and gender.

A History of Old English Literature. R. D. Fulk , Christopher M. Cain

<i>A History of Old English Literature</i>. R. D. Fulk , Christopher M. Cain

Review of Fulk, R.D. &amp; C.M. Cain (2005)A history of old English literature

Review of Fulk, R.D. &amp; C.M. Cain (2005)<i>A history of old English literature</i>

Review of Fulk, R.D. &amp; C.M. Cain (2005) A history of old English literature

Review of Fulk, R.D. &amp; C.M. Cain (2005) <i>A history of old English literature</i>

Review: A History of Old English Literature

Review: A History of Old English Literature

A History of Old English Literature

1University of St Louis A History of Old English Literature R. D.FulkChristopher M.Cain OxfordBlackwell 2002346£40

A history of Old English literature

Alexander's book is now the best and most complete one-volume guide to the whole of Old English, oldest and best-recorded of the vernaculars of Dark Age Europe. -- Tom Shippey, St. Louis University

What has Ingeld to do with Lindisfarne?

In the course of a long letter written in 797 to Speratus, bishop of an unnamed English see, Alcuin declares:Verba Dei legantur in sacerdotali convivio: ibi decet lectorem audiri, non citharistam, sermones patrum, non carmina gentilium. Quid Hinieldus cum Christo?Nowhere else in the substantial corpus of his letters does Alcuin name a known figure in early Germanic legend and literature – the Ingeld ofBeowulfandWidsith– or refer specifically to the vernacular literature of his home country. Unsurprisingly, since the publication of the first complete and correct text of the letter in 1873, this passage has been quotedin toto(in varying translations) or alluded to in virtually every history of Old English literature and every commentary onBeowulf. Jaffé, however, in the notes he left with his transcript when he died prematurely in 1870, had proposed an identification of the addressee, Speratus, with Bishop Hygbald of Lindisfarne, recorded from 780 to 803. Dümmler adopted Jaffé's view in his editions of the letter: and he has been followed without demur by every subsequent scholar who has quoted or referred to it. Furthermore, for most of the century it has been tacitly assumed that the letter was directed not merely to the bishop in person but also to the community of which he was head – a monastic one, even after the disasters of 793; and that Alcuin's exhortations, whether or not they were a response to the actual practice of Lindisfarne and other Northumbrian houses, are evidence of the acceptability (and indeed, cultural importance) of secular vernacular verse in eighth-century English monasteries.

A New Critical History of Old English Literature

Anglo-Saxon prose and poetry is, without question, the major literary achievement of the early Middle Ages (c. 700-1100). In no other vernacular language does such a vast store of verbal treasures exist for so extended a period of time. For twenty years the definitive guide to that literature has been Stanley B. Greenfield's 1965 Critical History of Old English Literature. Now this classic has been extensively revised and updated to make it more valuable than ever to both the student and scholar.

A New Critical History of Old English Literature. By Stanley B. Green-Field and Daniel G. Calder, with a survey of the Anglo-Latin background by Michael Lapidge. New York: New York University Press, 1986.

A New Critical History of Old English Literature. By Stanley B. Green-Field and Daniel G. Calder, with a survey of the Anglo-Latin background by Michael Lapidge. New York: New York University Press, 1986. - Volume 57 Issue 1

A New Critical History of Old English Literature

A New Critical History of Old English Literature

Sapiential Structure and Figural Narrative in the Old English ‘Elene’

The Old English Elene has generally been considered Cynewulf's most successful poem; but while critics have admired specific passages in it, they have generally either ignored or patronized the poem as a whole. Thus Kemp Malone writes that in Elene, Cynewulf ‘told his tale simply and clearly as Old English poets go. Here he doubtless owed something to his Latin source ….’ The most recent editor of the text, Gradon, remarks that apart from the descriptions of the battle and the sea voyage, ‘there is little in Elene that can be shown to be original … a glance at Holthausen's composite text shows that, poetic circumlocution apart, there is little not to be found in some version of the Acta Cyriaci.’ One recent critic to deal with Elene, S. B. Greenfield, in his Critical History of Old English Literature, argues for a more sympathetic view of the poem, suggesting that ‘the struggle between good and evil that preoccupied Cynewulf is here [in Elene] presented thematically as a contrast between darkness and light, both on a physical and spiritual level’; he goes on to argue that the central episodes of the poem (i.e. Elene's quest for the cross) have a distinct literary if not necessarily poetic power.’ But Greenfield does not develop these suggestions in detail and it would, I think, be a fair summary of his discussion of the poem to say that where previous critics have been cool, Greenfield is lukewarm.

A Critical History of Old English Literature. Stanley B. Greenfield

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsA Critical History of Old English Literature. Stanley B. Greenfield Morton W. BloomfieldMorton W. Bloomfield Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Speculum Volume 41, Number 2Apr., 1966 The journal of the Medieval Academy of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/2851276 Views: 4Total views on this site Copyright 1966 The Meiaeval Academy of AmericaPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

A Critical History of Old English Literature

A Critical History of Old English Literature

Studies in the History of Old English Literature.

Studies in the History of Old English Literature.

Studies in the History of Old English Literature

Studies in the History of Old English Literature