Art historian Meyer Schapiro defined style as "the constant form—and sometimes the constant elements, qualities, and expression—in the art of an individual or group." Today, style is frequently overlooked as a critical tool, with our interest instead resting with the personal, the ephemeral, and the fragmentary. Anglo-Saxon Styles demonstrates just how vital style remains in a methodological and theoretical prism, regardless of the object, individual, fragment, or process studied. Contributors from a variety of disciplines—including literature, art history, manuscript studies, philology, and more— consider the definitions and implications of style in Anglo-Saxon culture and in contemporary scholarship. They demonstrate that the idea of style as a "constant form" has its limitations, and that style is in fact the ordering of form, both verbal and visual. Anglo-Saxon texts and images carry meanings and express agendas, presenting us with paradoxes and riddles that require us to keep questioning the meanings of style.
Author(s): Catherine E. Karkov, George Hardin Brown
Series: SUNY Series in Medieval Studies
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 329
Anglo-Saxon Styles......Page 4
Contents......Page 6
Abbreviations......Page 8
Introduction......Page 10
1. Encrypted Visions: Style and Sense in the Anglo-Saxon Minor Arts, A.D. 400–900 by Leslie Webster......Page 20
2. Rethinking the Ruthwell and Bewcastle Monuments: Some Deprecation of Style; Some Consideration of Form and Ideology by Fred Orton......Page 40
3. Iuxta Morem Romanorum: Stone and Sculpture in Anglo-Saxon England by Jane Hawkes......Page 78
4. Beckwith Revisited: Some Ivory Carvings from Canterbury by Perette E. Michelli......Page 110
5. Style in Late Anglo-Saxon England: Questions of Learning and Intention by Carol Farr......Page 124
6. House Style in the Scriptorium, Scribal Reality, and Scholarly Myth by Michelle P. Brown......Page 140
7. Style and Layout of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts by William Schipper......Page 160
8. What We Talk about When We Talk about Style by Nicholas Howe......Page 178
9. “Either/And” as “Style” in Anglo-Saxon Christian Poetry by Sarah Larratt Keefer......Page 188
10. Eating People Is Wrong: Funny Style in Andreas and its Analogues by Jonathan Wilcox......Page 210
11. Aldhelm’s Jewel Tones: Latin Colors through Anglo-Saxon Eyes by Carin Ruff......Page 232
12. The Discreet Charm of the Old English Weak Adjective by Roberta Frank......Page 248
13. Rhythm and Alliteration: Styles of Ælfric’s Prose up to the Lives of Saints by Haruko Momma......Page 262
14. Both Style and Substance: The Case for Cynewulf by Andy Orchard......Page 280
List of Contributors......Page 316
A......Page 320
C......Page 321
E......Page 322
I......Page 323
M......Page 324
R......Page 325
V......Page 326
Z......Page 327
Index of Manuscripts Cited......Page 328
