Early Medieval English Texts And Interpretations

Twenty papers by students of Scragg (U. of Leicester) and other scholars of Anglo-Saxon from across Europe and the US pivot on his particular interests, among them editing and the transmission of texts, source studies, and interpretations of Old and transitional English poetry and prose. Readers are expected to be literate in Old English. Annotatio

Water is both a practical and symbolic element. Whether a drop blessed by saintly relics or a river flowing to the sea, water formed part of the natural landscapes, religious lives, cultural expressions, and physical needs of medieval women and men.00This volume adopts an interdisciplinary perspective to enlarge our understanding of the overlapping qualities of water in early England (c. 400 - c. 1100). Scholars from the fields of archaeology, history, literature, religion, and art history come together to approach water and its diverse cultural manifestations in the early Middle Ages. Individual essays include investigations of the agency of water and its inhabitants in Old English and Latin literature, divine and demonic waters, littoral landscapes of church archaeology and ritual, visual and aural properties of water, and human passage through water. As a whole, the volume addresses how water in the environment functioned on multiple levels, allowing us to examine the early medieval intersections between the earthly and heavenly, the physical and conceptual, and the material and textual within a single element.

Readings in Medieval Texts offers a thorough and accessible introduction to the interpretation and criticism of a broad range of Old and Middle English canonical texts from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries. The volume brings together 24 newly commissioned chapters by a leading international team of medieval scholars. An introductory chapter highlights the overarching trends in the composition of English Literature in the Medieval periods, and provides an overview of the textual continuities and innovations. Individual chapters give detailed information about context, authorship, date, and critical views on texts, before providing fascinating and thought-provoking examinations of crucial excerpts and themes. This book will be invaluable for undergraduate and graduate students on all courses in Medieval Studies, particularly those focusing on understanding literature and its role in society.

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.

This collection of essays explores the literary legacy of medieval England by examining the writers, editors and exemplars of medieval English texts. In order to better understand the human agency, creativity and forms of sanctity of medieval England, these essays investigate both the production of medieval texts and the people whose hands and minds created, altered and/or published them. The chapters consider the writings of major authors such as Chaucer, Gower and Wyclif in relation to texts, authors and ideals less well-known today, and in light of the translation and interpretive reproduction of the Bible in Middle English. The essays make some texts available for the first time in print, and examine the roles of historical scholars in the construction of medieval English literature and textual cultures. By doing so, this collection investigates what it means to recover, study and represent some of the key medieval English texts that continue to influence us today.

The ancient Romans believed that the Gods sent signs of future events to them through the flight of birds, meteorological disturbances and other natural phenomena. These signs influenced every sphere of ancient life, both public and private, from a state's decision to go to war or make peace, hold an election or meet a public crisis to an individual's business, marriage or travel plans. The articles in this book illustrate how the various Roman divinatory techniques were inter-woven into the structures of ancient society as well as how they were used in literary contexts. The intriguing question of the alleged doublethink among Roman intellectuals in their attitude to Divination is an important theme taken up in this book.

"Medieval English Literature" by W. P. Ker. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

In Translation Effects: Language, Time, and Community in Medieval England, Mary Kate Hurley reinterprets a well-recognized and central feature of medieval textual production: translation. Medieval texts often leave conspicuous evidence of the translation process. These translation effects are observable traces that show how medieval writers reimagined the nature of the political, cultural, and linguistic communities within which their texts were consumed. Examining translation effects closely, Hurley argues, provides a means of better understanding not only how medieval translations imagine community but also how they help create communities. Through fresh readings of texts such as the Old English Orosius, Ælfric's Lives of the Saints, Ælfric's Homilies, Chaucer, Trevet, Gower, and Beowulf, Translation Effects adds a new dimension to medieval literary history, connecting translation to community in a careful and rigorous way and tracing the lingering outcomes of translation effects through the whole of the medieval period.

In the modern world, angels can often seem to be no more than a symbol, but in the Middle Ages men and women thought differently. Some offered prayers intended to secure the angelic assistance for the living and the dead; others erected stone monuments carved with images of winged figures; and still others made angels the subject of poetic endeavour and theological scholarship. This wealth of material has never been fully explored, and was once dismissed as the detritus of a superstitious age. Angels in Early Medieval England offers a different perspective, by using angels as a prism through which to study the changing religious culture of an unfamiliar age. Focusing on one corner of medieval Europe which produced an abundance of material relating to angels, Richard Sowerby investigates the way that ancient beliefs about angels were preserved and adapted in England during the Anglo-Saxon period. Between the sixth century and the eleventh, the convictions of Anglo-Saxon men and women about the world of the spirits underwent a gradual transformation. This book is the first to explore that transformation, and to show the ways in which the Anglo-Saxons tried to reconcile their religious inheritance with their own perspectives about the world, human nature, and God.

This collection of essays explores the literary legacy of medieval England by examining the writers, editors and exemplars of medieval English texts. In order to better understand the human agency, creativity and forms of sanctity of medieval England, these essays investigate both the production of medieval texts and the people whose hands and minds created, altered and/or published them. The chapters consider the writings of major authors such as Chaucer, Gower and Wyclif in relation to texts, authors and ideals less well-known today, and in light of the translation and interpretive reproduction of the Bible in Middle English. The essays make some texts available for the first time in print, and examine the roles of historical scholars in the construction of medieval English literature and textual cultures. By doing so, this collection investigates what it means to recover, study and represent some of the key medieval English texts that continue to influence us today.