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The Cynewulf Reader is a collection of classic and original essays presenting a comprehensive view of the elusive Anglo-Saxon poet Cynewulf, his language, and his work. Essays by well-known medievalists explore Cynewulf's runic signature and poetic style and the problems in locating and appreciating the poet. The volume complements book-length treatments of the subject and provides basic foundations of Cynewulf scholarship.
The Old English poems attributed to Cynewulf, who flourished some
time between the eighth and tenth centuries, are unusual because
most vernacular poems in this period are anonymous. Other than the
name, we have no biographical details of Cynewulf, not even the
most basic facts of where or when he lived. Yet the poems
themselves attest to a powerfully inventive imagination, deeply
learned in Christian doctrine and traditional verse-craft. Runic
letters spelling out the name Cynewulf appear in four poems: Christ
II (or The Ascension), Juliana, The Fates of the Apostles, and
Elene. To these a fifth can be added, Guthlac B because of
similarities in style and vocabulary, but any signature (if one
ever existed) has been lost because its ending lines are missing.
What characterizes Cynewulf's poetry? He reveals an expert control
of structure as shown from the changes he makes to his Latin
sources. He has a flair for extended similes and dramatic dialogue.
In Christ II, for example, the major events in Christ's life are
portrayed as vigorous leaps. In Juliana the force of the saint's
rhetoric utterly confounds a demon sent to torment her.
The twenty-five poems and eleven metrical charms in this Old
English volume offer tantalizing insights into the mental landscape
of the Anglo-Saxons. The Wanderer" and The Seafarer" famously
combine philosophical consolation with introspection to achieve a
spiritual understanding of life as a journey. The Wife's Lament,
The Husband's Message, " and Wulf and Eadwacer "direct a subjective
lyrical intensity on the perennial themes of love, separation, and
the passion for vengeance. From suffering comes wisdom, and these
poems find meaning in the loss of fortune and reputation, exile,
and alienation. "Woe is wondrously clinging; clouds glide," reads a
stoic, matter-of-fact observation in Maxims II" on nature's
indifference to human suffering. Another form of wisdom emerges in
the form of folk remedies, such as charms to treat stabbing pain,
cysts, childbirth, and nightmares of witch-riding caused by a
dwarf. The enigmatic dialogues of Solomon and Saturn" combine
scholarly erudition and proverbial wisdom. Learning of all kinds is
celebrated, including the meaning of individual runes in The Rune
Poem" and the catalog of legendary heroes in Widsith." This book is
a welcome complement to the previously published DOML volume "Old
English Shorter Poems, Volume I: Religious and Didactic."
The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages is a major new reference
resource for all key aspects of European history, society,
religion, and culture from 500 to 1500. Since neighbouring areas of
Asia and North Africa impinged on and helped shape the civilization
of the West, relevant aspects of the Byzantine Empire, the Islamic
dynasties, and Asiatic peoples such as the Avars and the Mongols
are included. It is designed both for medievalists, who need a
detailed and reliable reference tool for their own research and
teaching, and for non-specialists, who need an accessible guide to
the study of the Middle Ages. All entries are written with both
audiences in mind. Over 800 scholars, guided by an international
advisory board of five and an international editorial board of 26,
have written the over 5,000 entries, and these entries have been
lavishly supplemented by more than 500 illustrations and 50 maps.
Each entry contains a brief bibliography. Distinguishing this
research resource are its balanced coverage of both the whole
geographical extent of the European Middle Ages and sixteen major
topics centrally important to the study of the period. Ten members
of the editorial board have ensured ample coverage of geographical
regions: France, Germany and Austria, Spain and Portugal, Italy,
Sicily, and Latin Greece, the Low Countries, England, Scotland,
Ireland, and Wales, Scandinavia and Iceland, and Central and
Eastern Europe. In addition sixteen members of the board have
ensured similar coverage of major international topics: art and
architecture, archaeology, science, medicine, technology, law,
ecclesiastical history, intellectual history, philosophy, social
and economic history, Romance, Germanic, and Slavic languages and
literatures, Islam, Judaica, medieval Latin, and music and liturgy.
There are also separate and substantial entries on women and
children in each of the geographical areas represented and in
Jewish and Islamic society.
Frederick Klaeber's Beowulf has long been the standard edition for
study by students and advanced scholars alike. Its wide-ranging
coverage of scholarship, its comprehensive philological aids, and
its exceptionally thorough notes and glossary have ensured its
continued use in spite of the fact that the book has remained
largely unaltered since 1936. The fourth edition has been prepared
with the aim of updating the scholarship while preserving the
aspects of Klaeber's work that have made it useful to students of
literature, linguists, historians, folklorists, manuscript
specialists, archaeologists, and theorists of culture.
A revised Introduction and Commentary incorporates the vast
store of scholarship on Beowulf that has appeared since 1950. It
brings readers up to date on areas of scholarship that have been
controversial since the last edition, including the construction of
the unique manuscript and views on the poem's date and unity of
composition. The lightly revised text incorporates the best textual
criticism of the intervening years, and the expanded Commentary
furnishes detailed bibliographic guidance to discussion of textual
cruces, as well as to modern and contemporary critical concerns.
Aids to pronunciation have been added to the text, and advances in
the study of the poem's language are addressed throughout. Readers
will find that the book remains recognizably Klaeber's work, but
with altered and added features designed to render it as useful
today as it has ever been.
The most revered work composed in Old English, Beowulf is a
landmark of European literature. This handbook supplies a wealth of
insights into all major aspects of this wondrous poem and its
scholarly tradition and offers both a rapid survey of trends in the
study of Beowulf and a more sustained exploration of selected
problems. Each chapter begins with a brief summary of its contents
followed by a chronology of the most important books and articles
on the particular topic it treats. The book has been written to
accommodate the needs of a broad audience, from non-specialists who
wish simply to read and enjoy Beowulf, to scholars at work on their
own research, and students of Old English. This is a volume in the
acclaimed series Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies, and will prove
an indispensable guide for many years to come. The acclaimed and
comprehensive 1988 edition of Beowulf edited by C. L. Wrenn and W.
F. Bolton is also available in the series.
The most revered work composed in Old English, "Beowulf" is one of
the landmarks of European literature. This handbook supplies a
wealth of insights into all major aspects of this wondrous poem and
its scholarly tradition. Each chapter provides a history of the
scholarly interest in a particular topic, a synthesis of present
knowledge and opinion, and an analysis of scholarly work that
remains to be done. Written to accommodate the needs of a broad
audience, "A Beowulf Handbook" will be of value to nonspecialists
who wish simply to read and enjoy Beowulf and to scholars at work
on their own research. In its clear and comprehensive treatment of
the poem and its scholarship, this book will prove an indispensable
guide to readers and specialists for many years to come.
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