This monograph offers an analysis of the lexical domain of beauty and other additional lexical domains that are figuratively used to refer to beauty, highlighting their central role in the Anglo-Saxon formulaic style. Using different methods from computational and cognitive linguistics, this study is aimed at determining the exact semantic value of these terms, detecting possible patterns of metaphorization and metonymization and identifying strategies behind their usage, ultimately determining how beauty was conceptualised and experienced in early Medieval England and in its literature. This research evidences the importance of this aesthetic idea in the Old English poetry and its aesthetic paradigm and revealing the core associations between beauty and other religious and social ideas.
Author(s): Francisco Javier Minaya Gómez
Series: Studies in English Medieval Language and Literature, 60
Publisher: Peter Lang
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 274
City: Berlin
Acknowledgments
Abstract
Introduction
1. From ‘Beauty’ to the Experience of Beauty
1.1. ‘Beauty’ as an Aesthetic Idea
1.2. Aesthetic Emotions and the Experience of Beauty
2. The Anglo-Saxon Mind, Senses and Aesthetic Sensibility
2.1. The Anglo-Saxon Senses, Emotions and Psychology
2.2. The Anglo-Saxon Aesthetic Experience
2.3. Anglo-Saxon Vernacular Verse: Some Considerations and Possible Subdivisions
3. The Lexical Domain of Beauty and Appearance
3.1. OE ansȳn
3.2. OE cȳm-
3.3. Adjective OE fæger
3.4. Adverb OE fægere
3.5. OE fægrian
3.6. OE wlite
3.7. OE wlitig
4. Beauty Is Cleanness
5. Beauty Is Colour
6. Beauty Is Uniqueness and Excellence
7. Beauty Is An Intricate Pattern
8. Beauty Is Light
9. Beauty Is Nobility
10. Beauty Is Aesthetic Pleasure
Concluding Remarks
Bibliography
