The Experience of Education in Anglo-Saxon Literature

Description

Anglo-Saxons valued education yet understood how precarious it could be, alternately bolstered and undermined by fear, desire, and memory. They praised their teachers in official writing, but composed and translated scenes of instruction that revealed the emotional and cognitive complexity of learning. Irina Dumitrescu explores how early medieval writers used fictional representations of education to explore the relationship between teacher and student. These texts hint at the challenges of teaching and learning: curiosity, pride, forgetfulness, inattention, and despair. Still, these difficulties are understood to be part of the dynamic process of pedagogy, not simply a sign of its failure. The book demonstrates the enduring concern of Anglo-Saxon authors with learning throughout Old English and Latin poems, hagiographies, histories, and schoolbooks. Acknowledgements viii List of Abbreviations xiii Introduction 1 1. Letters: Bede's "Ecclesiastical History of the English People" 17 2. Prayer: "Solomon and Saturn I" 34 3. Violence: Ælfric Bata's "Colloquies" 60 4. Recollection: "Andreas" 90 5. Desire: "The Life of St Mary of Egypt" 129 Conclusion: The Ends of Teaching 157 Notes 163 Bibliography 201 Index 229