Ideas of the World in Early Medieval English Literature (Studies in Old English Literature, 1)

Description

Across three thematically-linked sections, this volume charts the development of competing geographical, national, and imperial identities and communities in early medieval England. Literary works in Old English and Latin are considered alongside theological and historical texts from a range of disciplinary perspectives. Accounts of travel, foreign contacts, conversion, migration, landscape, nation, empire, and conquest are set within the continual flow of people and ideas from East to West, from continent to island and back, across the period. The fifteen contributors investigate how the early medieval English positioned themselves spatially and temporally in relation to their insular neighbours and other peoples and cultures. Several chapters explore the impact of Greek and Latin learning on Old English literature, while others extend the discussion beyond the parameters of Europe to consider connections with Asia and the Far East. Together these essays reflect ideas of inclusivity and exclusivity, connectivity and apartness, multiculturalism and insularity that shaped pre-Conquest England. Front Matter Mark Atherton, Kazutomo Karasawa,
and Francis Leneghan. Introduction: Foreign Contacts, Landscapes, and Empire-Building Daniel Anlezark. Alfred and the East Rachel A. Burns. The Wanderings of Saturn: Psychogeography, Psalms, and Solomon and Saturn S. C. Thomson. Otherwheres in the Prose Texts of the Nowell Codex: Here and Otherwhere Luisa Ostacchini. Rome Away from Rome: India, Rome, and England in Ælfric’s Life of St Thomas Kazutomo Karasawa. Christ Embracing the World: Ælfric’s Description of the Crucifixion in ‘De Passione Domini’ Daniel Thomas. Babel and Beyond: Thinking through Migration in Genesis A Britton Elliott Brooks. The Sound-World of Early Medieval England: A Case Study of the Exeter Book Storm Riddle Eleni Ponirakis. The Place of Stillness: Greek Patristic Thought in Cynewulf’s Juliana Hannah M. Bailey. St Rumwold in the Borderland Mark Atherton. The World of Ealdorman Byrhtnoth: A Landscape Biography Helen Appleton. Mapping Empire: Two World Maps in Early Medieval England Caitlin Ellis. Good Neighbours? Representations of the Britons, Welsh, Picts, and Scots in Pre-Conquest English Sources Ryan Lavelle. From (North-)East to West: Geographical Identities and Political Communities in the Ninth to Eleventh-Century Anglo-Scandinavian World Paul Cavill. Kings, People, and Lands: The Rhetoric of The Battle of Brunanburh Francis Leneghan. End of Empire? Reading The Death of Edward in MS Cotton Tiberius B I Index