This volume of previously unpublished essays on Anglo-Saxon poetry has been created in honor of John C. McGalliard on the occasion of his retirement from the University of Iowa after a distinguished career as a scholar-teacher of medieval literatures.
As a critical anthology designed to respond to all of the major and most of the minor poems in the Anglo- Saxon canon, this collection will prove valuable to every class in Anglo-Saxon, whether introductory or advanced. The twenty-five essays take up individual problems concerned with the interpretation of specific poems. In offering their solutions to these problems the contributors evince their great love of poetry and their impressive knowledge of Anglo-Saxon scholarship.
Author(s): Lewis E. Nicholson, Dolores Warwick Frese (eds.)
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
Year: 1975
Language: English
Pages: 404
Preface ix
Foreword / JOHN C. GERBER xi
Acknowledgments xv
Abbreviations xvi
SECULAR HEROIC POETRY: "Beowulf"
1. Healfdene’s Daughter / NORMAN E. ELIASON 3
2. Guilt and the World’s Complexity: The Murder of Ongentheow and the Slaying of the Dragon / JOHN GARDNER 14
3. Potlatch and Charity: Notes on the Heroic in "Beowulf" / CHARLES DONAHUE 23
4. Gnomic Indirection in "Beowulf" / ROBERT B. BURLIN 41
5. Hunlafing and the Point of the Sword / LEWIS E. NICHOLSON 50
RELIGIOUS HEROIC POETRY: The Lives of Holy Men and Women
6. "Guthlac A" and "Guthlac B": Some Discriminations / DANIEL G. CALDER 65
7. "Andreas" and "Beowulf": Placing the Hero / DAVID HAMILTON 81
8. Arithmetical Designs of the Old English "Andreas" / ROBERT D. STEVICK 99
9. The Speech of Stephen and the Tone of "Elene" / JAMES DOUBLEDAY 116
10. "Judith": Hypermetricity and Rhetoric / BURTON RAFFEL 124
11. "Judith": A Fragmentary and Political Poem / DAVID CHAMBERLAIN 135
THE LYRIC TRADITION: Secular and Religious
12. Toward a Critique of "The Dream of the Rood" / ALVIN A. LEE 163
13. "The Wanderer", "The Seafarer", and the Genre of "Planctus" / ROSEMARY WOOLF 192
14. Purpose and the "Poetics" of "The Wanderer" and "The Seafarer" / W. F. KLEIN 208
15. A Reading Context for "The Wife’s Lament" / ALAIN RENOIR 224
16. The Enigma of "The Husband’s Message" / MARGARET E. GOLDSMITH 242
17. The Design of the Old English "Deor" / JAMES L. BOREN 264
BIBLICAL NARRATIVE: The Old Testament
18. The Fall of Angels and Man in the Old English "Genesis B" / THOMAS D. HILL 279
19. More Scriptural Echoes in the Old English "Exodus" / JOSEPH B. TRAHERN, JR. 291
THE RUNIC TRADITION: Cynewulf’s Signed Poems
20. The Diction of the Old English "Christ" / ROBERT E. DIAMOND 301
21. The Art of Cynewulf’s Runic Signatures / DOLORES WARWICK FRESE 312
WISDOM LITERATURE: Maxim, Riddle, and Gnome
22. "Maxims II": Gnome and Poem / STANLEY B. GREENFIELD AND RICHARD EVERT 337
23. Artful Ambiguities in the Old English "Book-Moth" Riddle / FRED C. ROBINSON 355
24. Up a Tree: To See "The Fates of Men" / NEIL D. ISAACS 363
25. Widsith’s Journey Through Germanic Tradition / ROBERT P. CREED 376
