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Informationen zum Autor John D. Niles is the Frederic G. Cassidy Professor of Humanities, Emeritus, at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Professor Emeritus of English at the University of California, Berkeley. A former President of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists, he is the author or editor of a dozen books on Old English literature and related topics, including The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England 10661901: Remembering, Forgetting, Deciphering, and Renewing the Past (Wiley Blackwell, 2015) and Beowulf: The Poem and Its Tradition (1983). Klappentext The Anglo-Saxons produced a stunning array of writings both in Latin and, importantly, in the English language of their time. By the end of the Middle Ages, however, Old English literature had fallen into oblivion. It was not until the Renaisance and later times that shcolars began to bring many of these works back to light. Today they are a precious part of the world's literary heritage, even while provoking a wide range of critical responses, the laws, chronicles, and other writings of Anglo-Saxon England have had a lasting influence on modern social institutions.Angl-Saxon Studies offers readers a fascinating account of the sometimes contentious process by which knowledge of the literature of this period was recovered, and how Anglo-Saxon England became and remains a "useful past" for scholars, artists, creative writers and thinkers.The book thus offers a wide-ranging assessment of the history of Anglo-Saxon studies as a discipline, starting from its post-Conquest beginnings and continuing to the present day. After establishing the earlier history of the field, the book delves into an analysis of the recent criticism of Old English literature, featuring excerpts from ground-breaking essays that illustrate the most important critical trends of the past fifty years, and show the field's continuing dynamic evolution.Anglo-Saxon Studies provides a valuable critical overview for anyone interested in early medieval literature and culture. Zusammenfassung This review of the critical reception of Old English literature from 1900 to the present moves beyond a focus on individual literary texts so as to survey the different schools, methods, and assumptions that have shaped the discipline. Inhaltsverzeichnis Preface and Acknowledgements viiiAbbreviations xiiPart I Main Currents in Twentieth?-Century Criticism 11 Old English Studies 1901-1975 3The Earlier Twentieth-Century 4Literary Criticism: A Slow Start 8Two Scholars Representative of their Eras 10New Directions after the Second World War 16Changing Currents in Beowulf Studies 20Key Works from the Early Seventies 32Part II Anglo?-Saxon Lore and Learning 412 Literacy and Latinity 43Anglo?-Latin Literature: Background or Mainstream? 44Education in Two Languages 52The Student in the Classroom 55The Venerable Bede 58A Selection from the Criticism 62Excerpt: Joyce Hill! 'Learning Latin in Anglo?-Saxon England: Traditions! Texts and Techniques! (2003) 643 Textuality and Cultural Transformations 76The Anglo?-Saxon Book: Icon or Pragmatic Object? 78Writerly Self?-Reflexivity 81Reading Old English Texts in their Manuscript Context 85Authors and Scribes: The Flux of Texts 88From Latin to Old English: Translation or Transformation? 92Source Studies and the Culture of Translation 96A Selection from the Criticism 100Excerpt: M.B. Parkes! 'The Palaeography of the Parker Manuscript of the Chronicle! Laws! and Sedulius! and Historiography at Winchester in the Late Ninth and Tenth Centuries' (1976) 1014 Orality 112Parry! Lord! and their Legacy 116Oral Poetics and Noetics 120A Selection from the Criticism 126Selection: Donald K. Fry! 'The Memory of Cædmon' (1981) 1275 Heroic Tradition 136Short Poems on Legendary Themes 139Brunanburh! Maldon! and the Critics 142Beowulf and the Critics 149Indeterminacy and its Discontents 1...
