Description
Book SynopsisThis revised edition of A History of Old English Literature draws extensively on the latest scholarship to have evolved over the last decade. The text incorporates additional material throughout, including two new chapters on Anglo-Saxon manuscripts and incidental and marginal texts.
Trade Review"A new generation of students and their professors will undoubtedly apprecite the currency of what has proven to be a widely respected, comprehensive historical treatment of Old English literature." (Choice, 1 December 2013)
Table of ContentsList of IIIustrations vi
Preface to the First Edition (2003) vii
Preface to the Second Edition ix
Abbreviations x
Introduction
Anglo-Saxon England and Its Literature: A Social History 1
1 The Chronology and Varieties of Old English Literature 42
2 Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 58
3 Literature of the Alfredian Period 83
4 Homilies 112
5 Saints’ Legends (Rachel S. Anderson) 133
6 Biblical Literature 157
7 Liturgical and Devotional Texts 177
8 Legal Texts 211
9 Scientific and Scholastic Texts 227
10 Wisdom Literature and Lyric Poetry 241
11 Germanic Legend and Heroic Lay 278
12 Additions, Annotations, and Marginalia 329
Conclusion Making Old English New: Anglo-Saxonism and the Cultural Work of Old English Literature 354
Works Cited 367
Index 481
