The Cambridge History of Early Medieval English Literature

by Lees, Clare A.

• ISBN13: 9780521190589
• ISBN10: 0521190584
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-01-07
• Publisher: Cambridge Univ Pr

Summary

Informed by multi-cultural, 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.

Table of Contents

Introduction: literature in Britain and Ireland, 500-1150

Word, Script and Image:

Writing in Britain and Ireland, 400-800

The art of writing: scripts and scribal production

Art and writing: voice, image, object

Of Bede's 'Five Languages and Four Nations': the earliest writing from Ireland, Scotland and Wales

Insular Latin literature to 900

Bede and the northern kingdoms

Early English Literature:

Across borders: Anglo-Saxon England and the Germanic world

English literature in the ninth century

The writing of history in the early Middle Ages: the Anglo-Saxon chronicle in context

The literary languages of Old English: words, styles, voices

Old English poetic form: genre, style, prosody

Beowulf: a poem in our time

Old English lyrics: a poetics of experience

Literature in pieces: female sanctity and the relics of early women's writing

Saintly lives: friendship, kinship, gender and sexuality

Sacred history and Old English religious poetry

Performing Christianity: liturgical and devotional writing

Riddles, wonder and responsiveness in Anglo-Saxon literature

Latin Learning and the Literary Vernaculars:

In measure, and number, and weight: writing science

Legal documentation and the practice of English law

Latinities, 893-1143

The authority of English, 900-1150

Crossing the language divide: Anglo-Scandinavian language and literature

European literature and eleventh-century England

Gaelic literature in Ireland and Scotland, 900-1150

Writing in Welsh to 1150: re-creating the past, shaping the future

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