Interactions of Thought and Language in Old English Poetry

by Peter Clemoes

• ISBN13: 9780521035163
• ISBN10: 0521035163
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-12-14
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

Peter Clemoes brings a lifetime's close study of Anglo-Saxon texts to this appreciation of Old English poetry, with an alternative interpretation which relates the poetry to both the entire Anglo-Saxon way of thinking and the structures of its society. Clemoes proposes a dynamic principle of Old English poetry, very different from the common notion of formulas slotted into poems for stylistic variation. In extended discussions of particular poems and images as well as of changes in language, he shows how the poetic medium became a vehicle for increasing transformation to Christian literacy and to that religion's conceptions of the natural world, morality, and individuality. Carefully thought out and elegantly written, this book is also accessible to students: its numerous quotations are accompanied by modern English translations.

Table of Contents

Illustrations

Preface

Abbreviations

The Poetry of an Aristocratic Warrior Society

The chronological implications of the bond between kingship in Beowulf and kingship in practice

Society's ancient conceptions of active being and narrative living

Poetry's tradition of symbolic expression

The language of symbolic expression

Types of symbolic narrative

Basic characteristics of symbolic story

The Poetry of a Universal Religion

Vernacular poetic narrative in a Christian world

Poet, public petitioner and preacher

Symbolic language serving the company of Christ

Adaptation to a new material morality

From social hero to individual sub specie aeternitatis

Loyalty as a responsibility of the individual

This world as part of God's spiritual dominion

Works cited

Indexes

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.