Old English Literature: A Guide to Criticism with Selected Readings [Paperback]

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.

• Examines the notable works and authors from the period, including Beowulf, the Venerable Bede, heroic poems, and devotional literature
• Reinforces key perspectives with excerpts from ten critical studies
• Addresses questions of medieval literacy, textuality, and orality, as well as style, gender, genre, and theme
• Embraces the interdisciplinary nature of the field with reference to historical studies, religious studies, anthropology, art history, and more

Abbreviations xii

Part I Main Currents in Twentieth?-Century Criticism 1

1 Old English Studies 19011975 3

The Earlier Twentieth-Century 4

Literary Criticism: A Slow Start 8

Two Scholars Representative of their Eras 10

New Directions after the Second World War 16

Changing Currents in Beowulf Studies 20

Key Works from the Early Seventies 32

Part II Anglo?-Saxon Lore and Learning 41

2 Literacy and Latinity 43

Anglo?-Latin Literature: Background or Mainstream? 44

Education in Two Languages 52

The Student in the Classroom 55

The Venerable Bede 58

A Selection from the Criticism 62

Excerpt: Joyce Hill, Learning Latin in Anglo?-Saxon England: Traditions, Texts and Techniques, (2003) 64

3 Textuality and Culturl3