A new examination of the little-studied phenomena of Direct Speech in Old English poetry. Some of the most celebrated passages of Old English poetry are speeches: Beowulf and Unferth's verbal contest, Hrothgar's words of advice, Satan's laments, Juliana's words of defiance, etc. Yet Direct Speech, as a stylistic device, has remained largely under-examined and under-theorized in studies of the corpus. As a consequence, many analyses are unduly influenced by anachronistic conceptions of Direct Speech, leading to problematic interpretations, not least concerning irony and implicit characterisation. This book uses linguistic theories to reassess the role of Direct Speech in Old English narrative poetry. Beowulf is given a great deal of attention, because it is amajor poem and because it is the focus of much of the existing scholarship on this subject, but it is examined in a broader poetic context: the poem belongs to a wider tradition and thus needs to be understood in that context. The texts examined include several major Old English narrative poems, in particular the two Genesis, Christ and Satan, Andreas, Elene, Juliana and Guthlac A. Elise Louviot is a Lecturer at the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne (France) and a specialist of Old English poetry. Her research interests include orality, tradition, formulas and the linguistic expression of subjectivity.

A study of maxims - what they are, why and when they are used - based on detailed investigation of issues, texts and formulas.

This book presents the first comprehensive study of Anglo-Saxon manuscript texts containing runic letters. To date there has been no comprehensive study of these works in a single volume, although the need for such an examination has long been recognized. This is in spite of a growing academic interest in the mise-en-page of early medieval manuscripts. The texts discussed in this study include Old English riddles and elegies, the Cynewulfian poems, charms, Solomon and Saturn I, and the Old English Rune Poem. The focus of the discussion is on the literary analysis of these texts in their palaeographic and runological contexts. Anglo-Saxon authors and scribes did not, of course, operate within a vacuum, and so these primary texts are considered alongside relevant epigraphic inscriptions, physical objects, and historical documents. Victoria Symons argues that all of these runic works are in various ways thematically focused on acts of writing, visual communication, and the nature of the written word. The conclusion that emerges over the course of the book is that, when encountered in the context of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, runic letters consistently represent the written word in a way that Roman letters do not.

This volume illustrates some of the exciting paths of enquiry in Anglo-Saxon studies.

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