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This book addresses a little-considered aspect of the study of the history of emotions in medieval literature: the depiction of perplexing emotional reactions. Medieval literature often confronts audiences with displays of emotion that are improbable, physiologically impossible, or simply unfathomable in modern social contexts. The intent of such episodes is not always clear; medieval texts rarely explain emotional responses or their motivations. The implication is that the meanings communicated by such emotional display were so obvious to their intended audience that no explanation was required. This raises the question of whether such meanings can be recovered. This is the task to which the contributors to this book have put themselves. In approaching this question, this book does not set out to be a collection of literary studies that treat portrayals of emotion as simple tropes or motifs, isolated within their corpora. Rather, it seeks to uncover how such manifestations of feeling may reflect cultural and social dynamics underlying vernacular literatures from across the medieval North Sea world.
An examination of how emotions were practised and performed through Old English texts.Scholarship is increasingly interested in investigating concepts of emotion found in Old English literature. This study takes the next step, arguing that both heroic and religious texts were vehicles for emotional practice - that is, for doing things with emotion. Using case studies from heroic poetry (Beowulf, The Battle of Brunanburh and The Battle of Maldon), religious poetry (Christ I and Christ III) and homilies (selections from the Vercelli Book, Blickling Homilies and the works of Wulfstan), it shows via detailed close readings that texts could be used to act out emotional styles, manage the emotions...
The Creation is one of the most important themes in Old English poetry. The Riddle of Creation approaches the Creation through its metaphors, focussing especially on images relating to architecture and the body. These are shown to form organized structures extending throughout the poetry, structures which are ironically inverted in the Exeter Book riddles. Overall, these metaphors reveal not only Anglo-Saxon notions about the created world, but fundamental concepts about the nature of poetic creation as well.
Taken from the same manuscript as Cynewulf, the Junius 11 poems-Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, and Christ and Satan-comprise a series of redacted Old English works that have been traditionally presented as the work of Bede's Caedmon. Medieval scholars have concluded that the four poems were composed by more than one author and later edited by Junius in 1655. All of the poems are notable for their Christian content. Apart from its focus on the Junius 11 manuscript, this collection of essays is also important as a study of how to read, edit, and define any medieval literary text.
The Middle Ages in Texts and Texture is an introduction to medieval Europe unlike any other. These 26 essays, written by accomplished scholars all trained at the University of California, Berkeley, reflect on medieval texts and the opportunities they present for exploration of the Middle Ages. Introduced in a foreword by Thomas N. Bisson (Harvard University), these essays present a textured picture of the medieval world and offer models for how to reflect fruitfully on medieval sources. To help orient the reader, three maps, the editor's introduction, and an index are provided.
A consideration of the theme of demons as teachers in early English literature.
Offers a new interpretation by employing a musical, literary, theological and political discussion. Encourages new ways of interpreting Tudor and Elizabethan sacred music.
References to weaving and binding are ubiquitous in Anglo-Saxon literature. Several hundred instances of such imagery occur in the poetic corpus, invoked in connection with objects, people, elemental forces, and complex abstract concepts. Weaving Words and Binding Bodies presents the first comprehensive study of weaving and binding imagery through intertextual analysis and close readings of Beowulf, riddles, the poetry of Cynewulf, and other key texts. Megan Cavell highlights the prominent use of weaving and binding in previously unrecognized formulas, collocations, and type-scenes, shedding light on important tropes such as the lord-retainer "bond" and the gendered role of "peace-weaving" in Anglo-Saxon society. Through the analysis of metrical, rhetorical, and linguistic features and canonical and neglected texts in a wide range of genres, Weaving Words and Binding Bodies makes an important contribution to the ongoing study of Anglo-Saxon poetics.
In all six of its volumes The Broadview Anthology of British Literature presents British literature in a truly distinctive light. Fully grounded in sound literary and historical scholarship, the anthology takes a fresh approach to many canonical authors, and includes a wide selection of work by lesser-known writers. The anthology also provides wide-ranging coverage of the worldwide connections of British literature, and it pays attention throughout to issues of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation. It includes comprehensive introductions to each period, providing in each case an overview of the historical and cultural as well as the literary background. It features accessible and enga...
A powerful claim for the virtues of a more thoughtful and collegiate approach to the academy today. This book offers a response to the culture of metrics, mass digitisation, and accountability (as opposed to responsibility, or citizenship) that has developed in higher education world wide, as exemplified by the UK's Research Excellence Framework exercise (REF), and the increasing bureaucracy that limits the time available for teaching, research, and even conversation and collaboration. Ironically, these are problems that will be solved only by academicsfinding the time to talk and to work together. The essays collected here both critique the culture of speed in the neoliberal university and ...