A Companion to Anglo-Saxon Literature

by Pulsiano, Phillip; Treharne, Elaine

• ISBN13: 9780631209041
• ISBN10: 0631209042
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-12-21
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

This stimulating Companion brings together leading scholars from America, the Antipodes, and Europe to point the way ahead for Anglo-Saxon studies. The scope of the volume is unparalleled, embracing not only the literature of the period, but also the cultural background and the discipline of Anglo-Saxon studies: past, present and future. The chapters are linked into five sections covering contexts, readings, genres, intertextualities and debates. The combination of the discussion of primary material and manuscript sources with critical analysis and readings breaks new ground: fresh approaches are offered, genres of writing not normally studies are opened up, and readers are shown how texts can be read in their particular cultural milieu. The complete volume is essential reading for upper-level students or faculty who want a current and challenging overview of the field.

Author Biography

Phillip Pulsiano is late Professor of English at Villanova University. He authored numerous articles on Old and Middle English poetry and prose, and co-edited the Garland Encyclopaedia of Medieval Scandinavia (with Paul Acker and Kirsten Wolf). He had completed the first volume of The Old English Psalters (for Toronto University Press), and had undertaken significant research on Latin female saints' lives from the medieval period, and (with Joseph P. McGowan) the prose texts in the Beowulf-manuscript: work that will be published posthumously.

Elaine M. Treharne is Professor of Early English at Florida State University. She is author of The Old English Life of St Nicholas with the Old English Life of St Giles (1997), co-editor of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts and their Heritage (with Philip Pulsiano), Rewriting Old English in the Twelfth Century (with Mary Swan), and Readings in Medieval Texts (with David Johnson). She is the author of Old and Middle English: An Anthology (Blackwell, 2003) and an editor for Review of English Studies and Literature Compass. She currently works on the ideology of early English texts and their physical contexts.

Table of Contents

Contributors	x
Preface	xv
Acknowledgements	xvi
Abbreviations	xvii
Map 1 Late Anglo-Saxon England	xviii
Part I Contexts and Perspectives	1	(118)
An Introduction to the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Vernacular Literature	3	(8)
Elaine Treharne
Phillip Pulsiano
An Introduction to the Corpus of Anglo-Latin Literature	11	(39)
Joseph P. McGowan
Transmission of Literature and Learning: Anglo-Saxon Scribal Culture	50	(21)
Jonathan Wilcox
Authorship and Anonymity	71	(13)
Mary Swan
Audience(s), Reception, Literacy	84	(18)
Hugh Magennis
Anglo-Saxon Manuscript Production: Issues of Making and Using	102	(17)
Michelle P. Brown
Part II Readings: Cultural Framework and Heritage	119	(112)
The Germanic Background	121	(14)
Patrizia Lendinara
Religious Context: Pre-Benedictine Reform Period	135	(16)
Susan Irvine
The Benedictine Reform and Beyond	151	(19)
Joyce Hill
Legal and Documentary Writings	170	(18)
Carole Hough
Scientific and Medical Writings	188	(21)
Stephanie Hollis
Prayers, Glosses and Glossaries	209	(22)
Phillip Pulsiano
Part III Genres and Modes	231	(94)
Religious Prose	233	(18)
Roy M. Liuzza
Religious Poetry	251	(17)
Patrick W. Conner
Secular Prose	268	(13)
Donald G. Scragg
Secular Poetry	281	(15)
Fred C. Robinson
Anglo-Latin Prose	296	(29)
Joseph P. McGowan
Part IV Intertextualities: Sources and Influences	325	(76)
Biblical and Patristic Learning	327	(18)
Thomas Hall
The Irish Tradition	345	(30)
Charles D. Wright
Continental Germanic Influences	375	(13)
Rolf Bremmer
Scandinavian Relations	388	(13)
Robert E. Bjork
Part V Debates and Issues	401	(105)
English in the Post-Conquest Period	403	(12)
Elaine Treharne
Anglo-Saxon Studies: Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries	415	(19)
Timothy Graham
Anglo-Saxon Studies in the Nineteenth Century: England, Denmark, America	434	(21)
J. R. Hall
Anglo-Saxon Studies in the Nineteenth Century: Germany, Austria, Switzerland	455	(17)
Hans Sauer
By the Numbers: Anglo-Saxon Scholarship at the Century's End	472	(24)
Allen Frantzen
The New Millennium	496	(10)
Nicholas Howe
Selected Further Reading	506	(5)
Index	511