Download or read book The Composition of Old English Poetry written by H. Momma and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997-03-28 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 'prosodical' syntax is intended to replace the famous syntactic laws of Hans Kuhn through its greater accuracy and wider range of application.
Download or read book Old English Poetry An Anthology written by R.M. Liuzza and published by Broadview Press. This book was released on 2014-03-26 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: R.M. Liuzza’s Broadview edition of Beowulf was published at almost exactly the same time as Seamus Heaney’s; in reviewing the two together in July 2000 for The New York Review of Books, Frank Kermode concluded that both translations were superior to their predecessors, and that it was impossible to choose between the two: “the less celebrated translator can be matched with the famous one,” he wrote, and “Liuzza’s book is in some respects more useful than Heaney’s.” Ever since, the Liuzza Beowulf has remained among the top sellers on the Broadview list. With this volume readers will now be able to enjoy a much broader selection of Old English poetry in translations by Liuzza. As the collection demonstrates, the range and diversity of the works that have survived is extraordinary—from heartbreaking sorrow to wide-eyed wonder, from the wisdom of old age to the hot blood of battle, and to the deepest and most poignant loneliness. There is breathless storytelling and ponderous cataloguing; there is fervent religious devotion and playful teasing. The poems translated here are meant to provide a sense of some of this range and diversity; in doing so they also offer significant portions of three of the important manuscripts of Old English poetry—the Vercelli Book, the Junius Manuscript, and the Exeter Book.
Download or read book The Gaelic Background of Old English Poetry before Bede written by Colin A. Ireland and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2022-01-19 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seventh-century Gaelic law-tracts delineate professional poets (filid) who earned high social status through formal training. These poets cooperated with the Church to create an innovative bilingual intellectual culture in Old Gaelic and Latin. Bede described Anglo-Saxon students who availed themselves of free education in Ireland at this culturally dynamic time. Gaelic scholars called sapientes (“wise ones”) produced texts in Old Gaelic and Latin that demonstrate how Anglo-Saxon students were influenced by contact with Gaelic ecclesiastical and secular scholarship. Seventh-century Northumbria was ruled for over 50 years by Gaelic-speaking kings who could access Gaelic traditions. Gaelic literary traditions provide the closest analogues for Bede’s description of Cædmon’s production of Old English poetry. This ground-breaking study displays the transformations created by the growth of vernacular literatures and bilingual intellectual cultures. Gaelic missionaries and educational opportunities helped shape the Northumbrian “Golden Age”, its manuscripts, hagiography, and writings of Aldhelm and Bede.
Download or read book The Complete Old English Poems written by and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2017-01-31 with total page 1248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the riddling song of a bawdy onion that moves between kitchen and bedroom to the thrilling account of Beowulf's battle with a treasure-hoarding dragon, from the heart-rending lament of a lone castaway to the embodied speech of the cross upon which Christ was crucified, from the anxiety of Eve, who carries "a sumptuous secret in her hands / And a tempting truth hidden in her heart," to the trust of Noah who builds "a sea-floater, a wave-walking / Ocean-home with rooms for all creatures," the world of the Anglo-Saxon poets is a place of harshness, beauty, and wonder. Now for the first time, the entire Old English poetic corpus—including poems and fragments discovered only within the past fifty years—is rendered into modern strong-stress, alliterative verse in a masterful translation by Craig Williamson. Accompanied by an introduction by noted medievalist Tom Shippey on the literary scope and vision of these timeless poems and Williamson's own introductions to the individual works and his essay on translating Old English poetry, the texts transport us back to the medieval scriptorium or ancient mead-hall, to share a herdsman's recounting of the story of the world's creation or a people's sorrow at the death of a beloved king, to be present at the clash of battle or to puzzle over the sacred and profane answers to riddles posed over a thousand years ago. This is poetry as stunning in its vitality as it is true to its sources. Were Williamson's idiom not so modern, we might think that the Anglo-Saxon poets had taken up the lyre again and begun to sing once more.
Download or read book Poems and Prose from the Old English written by Charles Osborne and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this restructured and greatly expanded version of Burton Raffel's out-of-print classic, Poems from the Old English, Raffel and co-editor Alexandra H. Olsen place the oldest English writings in a different perspective. Keeping the classroom teacher's needs foremost in mind, Raffel and Olsen organize the major old English poems (except Beowulf) and new prose selections so as to facilitate both reading and studying. A general introduction provides an up-to-date and detailed historical account of the Anglo-Saxon period, and concise introductions open the literature sections of the book and many of the translations.
Download or read book Beowulf and Other Old English Poems written by Constance Hieatt and published by Bantam Classics. This book was released on 2010-05-26 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unique and beautiful, Beowulf brings to life a society of violence and honor, fierce warriors and bloody battles, deadly monsters and famous swords. Written by an unknown poet in about the eighth century, this masterpiece of Anglo-Saxton literature transforms legends, myth, history, and ancient songs into the richly colored tale of the hero Beowulf, the loathsome man-eater Grendel, his vengeful water-hag mother, and a treasure-hoarding dragon. The earliest surviving epic poem in any modern European language. Beowulf is a stirring portrait of a heroic world–somber, vast, and magnificent.
Download or read book Old English and Middle English Poetry written by Derek Pearsall and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-06-27 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1977, Old English and Middle English Poetry provides a historical approach to English poetry. The book examines the conditions out of which poetry grew and argues that the functions that it was assigned are historically integral to an informed understanding of the nature of poetry. The book aims to relate poems to the intellectual and formal traditions by which they are shaped and given their being. This book will be of interest to students and academics studying or working in the fields of literature and history alike.
Download or read book Reading Old English Biblical Poetry written by Janet Schrunk Ericksen and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2020-11-19 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reading Old English Biblical Poetry considers the Junius 11 manuscript, the only surviving illustrated book of Old English poetry, in terms of its earliest readers and their multiple strategies of reading and making meaning. Junius 11 begins with the creation story and ends with the final vanquishing of Satan by Jesus. The manuscript is both a continuous whole and a collection with discontinuities and functionally independent pieces. The chapters of Reading Old English Biblical Poetry propose multiple models for reader engagement with the texts in this manuscript, including selective and sequential reading, reading in juxtaposition, and reading in contexts within and outside of the pages of Junius 11. The study is framed by particular attention to the materiality of the manuscript and how that might have informed its early reception, and it broadens considerations of reading beyond those of the manuscript's compiler and possible patron. As a book, Junius 11 reflects a rich and varied culture of reading that existed in and beyond houses of God in England in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and it points to readers who had enough experience to select and find wisdom, narrative pleasure, and a diversity of other things within this or any book's contents.
Download or read book The Textuality of Old English Poetry written by Carol Braun Pasternack and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1995-07-20 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study constructs a reading of Old English poetry which takes up issues in poststructuralist theory, including intertextuality, work versus text and the author. The modern reader knows this literature as a discrete number of poems, set up and printed in units punctuated as modern sentences and with titles inserted by modern editors. Carol Braun Pasternack offers an alternative approach which takes into account the format of the verse as it exists in the manuscripts, using the term 'inscribed' to define texts which are situated between oral inheritance and print. In a detailed examination of texts throughout the canon she explores the ways in which readers construct poems in the process of reading and in addition she extends her analysis to the question of authorship, arguing that the texts do not imply an author but rather imply tradition as the source of their authority.
Download or read book The Earliest English Poems written by Michael Alexander and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1970 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Signs That Sing written by Heather Maring and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A critically sophisticated leap forward in the study of early medieval literature, Signs That Sing issues a bold challenge to long-held preconceptions about the relationships underlying Old English poetry between past and present, pagan and Christian, and oral and literary.”—Joseph Falaky Nagy, author of Conversing with Angels and Ancients: Literary Myths of Medieval Ireland “Maring sidesteps simplistic oral versus literary schools of thought as she considers Old English verse as the product of an emergent hybrid form, representing a fusion of native poetics and Christian beliefs and practices. A welcome contribution to oral poetics and the understanding of the earliest period of English literature.”—John D. Niles, author of The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England 1066–1901: Remembering, Forgetting, Deciphering, and Renewing the Past “Elegantly shows how the elements of oral poetry continued to inspire the authors of Old English verse long after their conversion to Christianity. Far from being antiquarian relics, the themes of oral verse joined with learned exegesis and ritual performances to form a rich source of metaphorical meaning in Old English poetry, which this book brilliantly opens up to modern readers.”—Emily V. Thornbury, author of Becoming a Poet in Anglo-Saxon England In Signs That Sing, Heather Maring argues that oral tradition, ritual, and literate Latinbased practices are dynamically interconnected in Old English poetry. Resisting the tendency to study these different forms of expression separately, Maring contends that poets combined them in hybrid techniques that were important to the development of early English literature. Maring examines a variety of texts, including Beowulf, The Battle of Maldon, Deor, The Dream of the Rood, Genesis A/B, The Advent Lyrics, and select riddles. She shows how themes and typescenes from oral tradition—devouring-the-dead, the lord-retainer, the poet-patron, and the sea voyage—become metaphors for sacred concepts in the hands of Christian authors. She also cites similarities between oral-traditional and ritual signs to describe how poets systematically employed ritual signs in written poems to dramatic effect. The result, Maring demonstrates, is richly elaborate verse filled with shared symbols and themes that would have been highly meaningful and widely understood by audiences at the time.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature written by Malcolm Godden and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This updated edition has been thoroughly revised to take account of recent scholarship and includes five new chapters.
Download or read book Representations of the Natural World in Old English Poetry written by Jennifer Neville and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-03-13 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines descriptions of the natural world in a wide range of Old English poetry. Jennifer Neville describes the physical conditions experienced by the Anglo-Saxons - the animals, diseases, landscapes, seas and weather with which they had to contend. She argues that poetic descriptions of these elements were not a reflection of the existing physical conditions but a literary device used by Anglo-Saxons to define more important issues: the state of humanity, the creation and maintenance of society, the power of individuals, the relationship between God and creation and the power of writing to control information. Examples of contemporary literature in other languages are used to provide a sense of Old English poetry's particular approach, which incorporated elements from Germanic, Christian and classical sources. The result of this approach was not a consistent cosmological scheme but a rather contradictory vision which reveals much about how the Anglo-Saxons viewed themselves.
Download or read book The Cambridge History of Early Medieval English Literature written by Clare A. Lees and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-29 with total page 910 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Informed by multicultural, multidisciplinary perspectives, The Cambridge History of Early Medieval English Literature offers a new exploration of the earliest writing in Britain and Ireland, from the end of the Roman Empire to the mid-twelfth century. Beginning with an account of writing itself, as well as of scripts and manuscript art, subsequent chapters examine the earliest texts from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and the tremendous breadth of Anglo-Latin literature. Chapters on English learning and literature in the ninth century and the later formation of English poetry and prose also convey the profound cultural confidence of the period. Providing a discussion of essential texts, including Beowulf and the writings of Bede, this History captures the sheer inventiveness and vitality of early medieval literary culture through topics as diverse as the literature of English law, liturgical and devotional writing, the workings of science and the history of women's writing.
Download or read book Authors Audiences and Old English Verse written by Thomas A. Bredehoft and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Authors, Audiences, and Old English Verse re-examines the Anglo-Saxon poetic tradition from the eighth to the eleventh centuries and reconsiders the significance of formulaic parallels and the nature of poetic authorship in Old English. Offering a new vision of much of Old English literary history, Thomas A. Bredehoft traces a tradition of 'literate-formulaic' composition in the period and contends that many phrases conventionally considered oral formulas are in fact borrowings or quotations. His identification of previously unrecognized Old English poems and his innovative arguments about the dates, places of composition, influences, and even possible authors for a variety of tenth- and eleventh-century poems illustrate that the failure of scholars to recognize the late Old English verse tradition has seriously hampered our literary understanding of the period. Provocative and bold, Authors, Audiences and Old English Verse has the potential to transform modern understandings of the classical Old English poetic tradition.
Download or read book Thought and Action in Old English Poetry and Prose written by Eleni Ponirakis and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-12-31 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cognitive approaches to early medieval texts have tended to focus on the mind in isolation. By examining the interplay between mental and physical acts deployed in Old English poetry and prose, this study identifies new patterns and offers new perspectives. In these texts, the performance of right or wrong action is not linked to natural inclination dictated by birth; it is the fruit of right or wrong thinking. The mind consciously directed and controlled is open to external influences, both human and diabolical. This struggle to produce right thought and action reflects an emerging democratization of heroism that crosses societal and gender boundaries, becoming intertwined with socio-political, soteriological, and cultural meaning. In a study of influential prose texts, including the Alfredian translations and the sermons of Ælfric, alongside close readings of three poems from different genres – The Seafarer, The Battle of Maldon, and Juliana –, Ponirakis demonstrates how early medieval authors create patterns of interaction between the mental and the physical. These provide hidden keys to meaning which, once found, unlock new readings of much studied texts. In addition, these patterns of balance, distribution, and opposition, reveal a startling similarity of approach across genre and form, taking the discussion of the early medieval conception of the mind, soul, and emotion, not to mention conventional generic divisions, onto new ground.
Download or read book The Irish Tradition in Old English Literature written by Charles D. Wright and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1993-07 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Wright identifies the characteristic features of Irish Christian literature which influenced Anglo-Saxon vernacular authors. As a full-length study of Irish influence on Old English religious literature, the book will appeal to scholars in Old English literature, Anglo-Saxon studies, and Old and Middle Irish literature.
