Description
Book SynopsisA new approach to the study of Old English Poetry, featuring close reading of the text, its form and style. Traditions are created and maintained by groups of people living in specific times and places: they do not have a life of their own. In this radical new approach to Old English poetics, the author argues that the apparent timelessness and stability of Old English poetic convention is a striking historical phenomenon that must be accounted for, not assumed, and that the perceived conservatism of Old English poetic conventions is the result of choice. Successive generations of poets deliberately maintained the traditionality of Old English poetry, putting it into dialogue with contemporary conditions to express critique and dissent as well as nostalgia. The author makes particularuse of the rich language of treasure to be found in Anglo-Saxon verse to historicise her argument, but her argument has wide implications for how we approach the role of tradition in the poetry of earlier societies. DrELIZABETH TYLER teaches in the Department of English and the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York.
Trade ReviewA valuable book for what it contributes to our understanding of Anglo-Saxon poets' composition processes and the poetic tradition. * SPECULUM *
Thought-provoking and original. * EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE *
Table of ContentsTreasure and Old English Verse - Elizabeth M. Tyler The Collocation of Words for Treasure in Old English Verse - Elizabeth M. Tyler Formulas and the Aesthetics of the Familiar - Elizabeth M. Tyler Verbal Repetition and the Aesthetics of the Familiar - Elizabeth M. Tyler Poetics and the Past: Traditional Style at the Turn of the Millenium - Elizabeth M. Tyler
