A New Critical History of Old English Literature

Description

With a survey of the Anglo-Latin background by Michael Lapidge. Anglo-Saxon prose and poetry is, without question, the major literary achievement of the early Middle Ages (c. 700-1100). In no other vernacular language does such a vast store of verbal treasures exist for so extended a period of time. For twenty years the definitive guide to that literature has been Stanley B. Greenfield's 1965 "Critical History of Old English Literature". Now this classic has been extensively revised and updated to make it more valuable than ever to both the student and scholar. "A New Critical History of Old English Literature" tries to account for some of the renewed interest in the history of the discipline, seen as a history of tastes, styles, and attitudes. Above all it strives, through an understanding of historical context (while using modern critical techniques) to comprehend and appreciate that extraordinary corpus which came out of the encounter between an unlettered Germanic tribal aesthetic and the remnants of the classical tradition, itself transformed by the Christian religion. Preface to the New Edition ix Acknowledgments xi Preface to the Original Edition xiii Introduction 1 1. The Anglo-Latin Background 5 2. The Alfredian Translations and Related Ninth-Century Texts 38 3. Ælfric, Wulfstan, and Other Late Prose 68 4. Legal and Scientific Prose 107 5. Some Remarks on the Nature and Quality of Old English Poetry 122 6. Secular Heroic Poetry 134 7. The Christian Saint as Hero 158 8. Christ as Poetic Hero 183 9. Old Testament Narrative Poetry 206 10. Miscellaneous Religious and Secular Poetry 227 11. Lore and Wisdom 253 12. Elegiac Poetry 280 Abbreviations 303 Bibliography 305 Index 361