The Anglo-Saxons placed a great deal of importance on wisdom and learning, something Beowulf makes dramatically clear when he uses his "wordhord" to command respect and admiration from his friends and foes alike. Modern day scholars no longer have recourse to the living language and culture of the Anglo-Saxons, and as a result must turn to their "wordhords" - the literary, historical, and cultural artefacts that have survived in various degrees of intactness - to learn about life in Anglo-Saxon England.
This collection of essays, gathered to honour the memory of the noted Anglo-Saxonist Edward B. Irving, Jr., brings together an international group of leading scholars who take the measure of Anglo-Saxon literary, textual, and lexical studies in the present moment. Ranging from philological and structural studies to ones that explicitly engage a variety of contemporary theoretical issues, they reflect the rich diversity of approaches to be found among Anglo-Saxonists. Subjects addressed include comparative work on Old English and Latin, and on Old English, ancient Greek, and South Slavic, notions of authorship and textual integrity, techniques of editing, heroic poetry, religious verse, lexicography, oral tradition, and material textuality. Offering a fresh reading of some popular pieces and inviting attention to some less-familiar texts, these previously unpublished essays illustrate the latest state of particular techniques for literary/critical analysis, textual recovery, and lexical studies.
Author(s): Mark C. Amodio, Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe (eds.)
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: X+360
Acknowledgments vii
Abbreviations ix
Introduction 3
Mark C. Amodio, Vassar College, and Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe, University of Notre Dame
Falling into Place: Dislocation in the Junius Book 14
Nicholas Howe, University of California, Berkeley
Aelfric Revises: The Lives of Martin and the Idea of the Author 38
Paul E. Szarmach, Western Michigan University
"Beowulf" and Scribal Performance 62
A. N. Doane, University of Wisconsin, Madison
How Genres Leak in Traditional Verse 76
John Miles Foley, University of Missouri, Columbia
A Reading of "Brunanburh" 109
Donald Scragg, University of Manchester
"Ic" and "We" in Eleventh-Century Old English Liturgical Verse 123
Sarah Larratt Keefer, Trent University
Cynewulf and the "Passio S. Iulianae" 147
Michael Lapidge, University of Notre Dame
King Cnut's Grant of Sandwich to Christ Church, Canterbury: A New Reading of a Damaged Annal in Two Copies of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 172
Timothy Graham, University of New Mexico
The Fables of the Bayeux Tapestry: An Anglo-Saxon Perspective 191
Gail Ivy Berlin, Indiana University, Pennsylvania
N. F. S. Grundtvig's 1840 Edition of the Old English "Phoenix": A Vision of a Vision of Paradise 217
Robert E. Bjork, Arizona State University
Hrothgar's "admirable courage" 240
Jane Roberts, King's College, London
Questions of Fairness: Fair, Not Fair, and Foul 252
Antonette diPaolo Healey, University of Toronto
Bravery and the Vocabulary of Bravery in "Beowulf" and the "Battle of Maldon" 274
Janet Bately, King's College, London
Sex in the Dictionary of Old English 302
Roberta Frank, Yale University
A Select Bibliography of the Writings of Edward B. Irving, Jr 313
Bibliography 315
Contributors 347
Index 351
