The essays here engage with the ways in which the Anglo-Saxons and their literature have been received, confronted, and re-envisioned in the modern imagination. An excellent collection... breaks new ground in many areas. Should make a substantial impact on the discussion of the contemporary influence of Anglo-Saxon Culture. Conor McCarthy, author of Seamus Heaney and the Medieval Imagination Britain's pre-Conquest past and its culture continues to fascinate modern writers and artists. From Henry Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader to Seamus Heaney's Beowulf, and from high modernism to themusclebound heroes of comic book and Hollywood, Anglo-Saxon England has been a powerful and often unexpected source of inspiration, antagonism, and reflection. The essays here engage with the ways in which the Anglo-Saxons and their literature have been received, confronted, and re-envisioned in the modern imagination. They offer fresh insights on established figures, such as W.H. Auden, J.R.R. Tolkien, and David Jones, and on contemporary writers such asGeoffrey Hill, Peter Reading, P.D. James, and Heaney. They explore the interaction between text, image and landscape in medieval and modern books, the recasting of mythic figures such as Wayland Smith, and the metamorphosis of Beowulf into Grendel - as a novel and as grand opera. The early medieval emerges not simply as a site of nostalgia or anxiety in modern revisions, but instead provides a vital arena for creativity, pleasure, and artistic experiment. Contributors: Bernard O'Donoghue, Chris Jones, Mark Atherton, Maria Artamonova, Anna Johnson, Clare A. Lees, Sian Echard, Catherine A.M. Clarke, Maria Sachiko Cecire, Allen J. Frantzen, John Halbrooks, Hannah J. Crawforth, Joshua Davies, Rebecca Anne Barr

Examinations of the date of Beowulf have tremendous significance for Anglo-Saxon culture in general. This book will be a milestone, and deserves to be widely read. The early Beowulf that overwhelmingly emerges here asks hard questions, and the same strictly defined measures of metre, spelling, onomastics, semantics, genealogy, and historicity all cry out to be tested further and applied more broadly to the whole corpus of Old English verse. Andy Orchard, Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, University of Oxford. The datingof Beowulf has been a central question in Anglo-Saxon studies for the past two centuries, since it affects not only the interpretation of Beowulf, but also the trajectory of early English literary history. By exploring evidence for the poem's date of composition, these essays contribute to a wide range of pertinent fields, including historical linguistics, Old English metrics, onomastics, and textual criticism. Many aspects of Anglo-Saxon literary culture are likewise examined, as contributors gauge the chronological significance of the monsters, heroes, history, and theology brought together in Beowulf. Discussions of methodology and the history of the discipline also figure prominently in this collection. Overall, the dating of Beowulf here provides a productive framework for evaluating evidence and drawing informed conclusions about its chronological significance. These conclusions enhance our appreciation of Beowulf and improve our understanding of the poem's place in literary history. Leonard Neidorf is a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. Contributors: Frederick M. Biggs, Thomas A. Bredehoft, George Clark, Dennis Cronan, Michael D.C. Drout, Allen J. Frantzen, R.D. Fulk, Megan E. Hartman, Joseph Harris, Thomas D. Hill, Leonard Neidorf, Rafael J. Pascual, Tom Shippey

A fresh approach to the implications of obtaining, preparing, and consuming food, concentrating on the little-investigated routines of everyday life. Food in the Middle Ages usually evokes images of feasting, speeches, and special occasions, even though most evidence of food culture consists of fragments of ordinary things such as knives, cooking pots, and grinding stones, which are rarely mentioned by contemporary writers. This book puts daily life and its objects at the centre of the food world. It brings together archaeological and textual evidence to show how words and implements associated with food contributed to social identity at all levels of Anglo-Saxon society. It also looks at the networks which connected fields to kitchens and linked rural centres to trading sites. Fasting, redesigned field systems, and the place offish in the diet are examined in a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary inquiry into the power of food to reveal social complexity. Allen J. Frantzen is Emeritus Professor of English at Loyola University Chicago.

Examinations of the date of Beowulf have tremendous significance for Anglo-Saxon culture in general. This book will be a milestone, and deserves to be widely read. The early Beowulf that overwhelmingly emerges here asks hard questions, and the same strictly defined measures of metre, spelling, onomastics, semantics, genealogy, and historicity all cry out to be tested further and applied more broadly to the whole corpus of Old English verse. Andy Orchard, Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, University of Oxford. The datingof Beowulf has been a central question in Anglo-Saxon studies for the past two centuries, since it affects not only the interpretation of Beowulf, but also the trajectory of early English literary history. By exploring evidence for the poem's date of composition, the essays in this volume contribute to a wide range of pertinent fields, including historical linguistics, Old English metrics, onomastics, and textual criticism. Many aspects of Anglo-Saxon literary culture are likewise examined, as contributors gauge the chronological significance of the monsters, heroes, history, and theology brought together in Beowulf. Discussions of methodology and the history of the discipline also figure prominently in this collection. Overall, the dating of Beowulf here provides a productive framework for evaluating evidence and drawing informed conclusions about its chronological significance. These conclusions enhance our appreciation of Beowulf and improve our understanding of the poem's place in literary history. Leonard Neidorf is a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. Contributors: Frederick M. Biggs, Thomas A. Bredehoft, George Clark, Dennis Cronan, Michael D.C. Drout, Allen J. Frantzen, R.D. Fulk, Megan E. Hartman, Joseph Harris, Thomas D. Hill, Leonard Neidorf, Rafael J. Pascual, Tom Shippey

A fresh approach to the implications of obtaining, preparing, and consuming food, concentrating on the little-investigated routines of everyday life. Food in the Middle Ages usually evokes images of feasting, speeches, and special occasions, even though most evidence of food culture consists of fragments of ordinary things such as knives, cooking pots, and grinding stones, which are rarely mentioned by contemporary writers. This book puts daily life and its objects at the centre of the food world. It brings together archaeological and textual evidence to show how words and implements associated with food contributed to social identity at all levels of Anglo-Saxon society. It also looks at the networks which connected fields to kitchens and linked rural centres to trading sites. Fasting, redesigned field systems, and the place offish in the diet are examined in a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary inquiry into the power of food to reveal social complexity. Allen J. Frantzen is Professor of English at Loyola University Chicago.

Alfred's life, work and influence studied through writings of his age. Alfred and the great achievements of his reign are once more at the centre of scholarly discussion, and the studies in this collection make a significant contribution to the continuing debate. Focusing particularly on the writingsof Alfred's age, the contributions, by leading scholars in the field, examine Alfred's life, work and influence: there are accounts of law and morality; examinations of translations and their sources; and investigations of wordsand events, throwing new light on all major aspects of Alfred's reign. As a whole, the volume is an appropriate tribute to Janet Bately, whose writings on the age of Alfred are known and admired by both historians and literary scholars throughout the world. Professor JANE ROBERTS teaches in the Department of English, King's College, London; Professor JANET L. NELSON, Director of the Centre for Late Antiques and Medieval Studies, teaches in the Department of History, King's College, London; Professor MALCOLM GODDEN is Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford. Contributors and contents: ANDREW BREEZE, J.E. CROSS, ANDREW HAMER, ROBERTA FRANK, ALLEN J. FRANTZEN, M.R. GODDEN, WALTER GOFFART, LYNNE GRUNDY, CYRIL HART, JOYCE HILL, SIMON KEYNES, ANN KNOCK, BRUCE MITCHELL, JANET L. NELSON, BARBARA RAW, JANE ROBERTS, D.G. SCRAGG, ALFRED B. SMYTH, E.G. STANLEY, PAULE. SZARMACH, PATRICK WORMALD

The essays in this book use the nine-line poem known as ""Caedmon's Hymn"" as a lens on the world of Bede's Ecclesiastical History. A cowherd who is given a divine gift, Caedmon retells the great narratives of Christian history in the traditional form of Anglo-Saxon verse. An immense amount has been written about this episode, much of it concentrating on the hymn's significance in the history of English literature. Relatively little attention has been paid to what the story of Caedmon and his hymn might tell us about the material as well as the textual culture of Bede's world. The essays in this collection seek to connect ""Caedmon's Hymn"" to Bede s material world in various ways. Each chapter begins with the hymn and moves from the text to the worlds of scientific thought, settlements and social hierarchy, monastic reform, ordinary things, and others. The connections explored here are a sampling of the material concerns this one text, ""Caedmon's Hymn,"" raises.

In the popular imagination, World War I stands for the horror of all wars. The unprecedented scale of the war and the mechanized weaponry it introduced to battle brought an abrupt end to the romantic idea that soldiers were somehow knights in shining armor who always vanquished their foes and saved the day. Yet the concept of chivalry still played a crucial role in how soldiers saw themselves in the conflict.
Here for the first time, Allen J. Frantzen traces these chivalric ideals from the Great War back to their origins in the Middle Ages and shows how they resulted in highly influential models of behavior for men in combat. Drawing on a wide selection of literature and images from the medieval period, along with photographs, memorials, postcards, war posters, and film from both sides of the front, Frantzen shows how such media shaped a chivalric ideal of male sacrifice based on the Passion of Jesus Christ. He demonstrates, for instance, how the wounded body of Christ became the inspiration for heroic male suffering in battle. For some men, the Crucifixion inspired a culture of revenge, one in which Christ's bleeding wounds were venerated as badges of valor and honor. For others, Christ's sacrifice inspired action more in line with his teachings--a daring stay of hands or reason not to visit death upon one's enemies.
Lavishly illustrated and eloquently written, "Bloody Good" will be must reading for anyone interested in World War I and the influence of Christian ideas on modern life.

This study challenges the long-held belief that the early Middle Ages tolerated and even fostered same-sex relations and that intolerance of homosexuality developed only late in the medieval period. Th e text argues that early medieval Christians did not tolerate same-sex acts and, furthermore, that men and women during this time who preferred homosexual relations pursued their desires in spite of official sanctions. This was an age before people recognized the existence - or the possibility - of the "closet". This work focuses on Anglo-Saxon literature but also includes examinations of contemporary opera, dance and theatre. The text employs the figure of the shadow to illustrate the coexistence of homosexual and heterosexual relations in the Middle Ages. The figure is introduced through an analysis of a man's part sung by a woman in operas such as Gounod's "Faust". The reverse figure - men taking women's parts - is traced in two dances by Mark Morris, "The Hard Nut" and "Dido and Aeneas". Also analyzed is the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant in Tony Kushner's play, "Angels in America" and the poems, "Beowulf" and "The Wanderer".