Author: Samantha Zacher
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442666293
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 377
Book Description
Most studies of Jews in medieval England begin with the year 1066, when Jews first arrived on English soil. Yet the absence of Jews in England before the conquest did not prevent early English authors from writing obsessively about them. Using material from the writings of the Church Fathers, contemporary continental sources, widespread cultural stereotypes, and their own imaginations, their depictions of Jews reflected their own politico-theological experiences. The thirteen essays in Imagining the Jew in Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture examine visual and textual representations of Jews, the translation and interpretation of Scripture, the use of Hebrew words and etymologies, and the treatment of Jewish spaces and landmarks. By studying the “imaginary Jews” of Anglo-Saxon England, they offer new perspectives on the treatment of race, religion, and ethnicity in pre- and post-conquest literature and culture.
Imagining the Jew in Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture
Author: Samantha Zacher
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442666293
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 377
Book Description
Most studies of Jews in medieval England begin with the year 1066, when Jews first arrived on English soil. Yet the absence of Jews in England before the conquest did not prevent early English authors from writing obsessively about them. Using material from the writings of the Church Fathers, contemporary continental sources, widespread cultural stereotypes, and their own imaginations, their depictions of Jews reflected their own politico-theological experiences. The thirteen essays in Imagining the Jew in Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture examine visual and textual representations of Jews, the translation and interpretation of Scripture, the use of Hebrew words and etymologies, and the treatment of Jewish spaces and landmarks. By studying the “imaginary Jews” of Anglo-Saxon England, they offer new perspectives on the treatment of race, religion, and ethnicity in pre- and post-conquest literature and culture.
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442666293
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 377
Book Description
Most studies of Jews in medieval England begin with the year 1066, when Jews first arrived on English soil. Yet the absence of Jews in England before the conquest did not prevent early English authors from writing obsessively about them. Using material from the writings of the Church Fathers, contemporary continental sources, widespread cultural stereotypes, and their own imaginations, their depictions of Jews reflected their own politico-theological experiences. The thirteen essays in Imagining the Jew in Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture examine visual and textual representations of Jews, the translation and interpretation of Scripture, the use of Hebrew words and etymologies, and the treatment of Jewish spaces and landmarks. By studying the “imaginary Jews” of Anglo-Saxon England, they offer new perspectives on the treatment of race, religion, and ethnicity in pre- and post-conquest literature and culture.
Angles on a Kingdom
Author: Joseph Grossi
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487532571
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
From the eighth century to the turn of the millennium, East Anglia had a variety of identities thrust upon it by authors of the period who envisioned a unified England. Although they were not regional writers in the modern sense, Bede, Felix, the annalists of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, King Alfred of Wessex, Abbo of Fleury, and Ælfric of Eynsham took a keen interest in East Anglia, especially in its potential to undo English cultural cohesiveness as they imagined it. Angles on a Kingdom argues that those authors treated East Anglia as both a hindrance and a stimulus to the development of early English "national" consciousness. Combining close textual reading with consideration of early medieval barrow burials, coinage, border delineation, and rivalries between monastic houses, Joseph Grossi examines various forms of cultural affirmation and manipulation. Angles on a Kingdom shows that, over the course of roughly two and a half centuries, the literary metamorphoses of East Anglia hint at the region’s recurring tensions with its neighbours – tensions which suggest that writers who sought to depict a coherent England downplayed what they deemed to be dangerous impulses emanating from the island’s easternmost corner.
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487532571
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
From the eighth century to the turn of the millennium, East Anglia had a variety of identities thrust upon it by authors of the period who envisioned a unified England. Although they were not regional writers in the modern sense, Bede, Felix, the annalists of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, King Alfred of Wessex, Abbo of Fleury, and Ælfric of Eynsham took a keen interest in East Anglia, especially in its potential to undo English cultural cohesiveness as they imagined it. Angles on a Kingdom argues that those authors treated East Anglia as both a hindrance and a stimulus to the development of early English "national" consciousness. Combining close textual reading with consideration of early medieval barrow burials, coinage, border delineation, and rivalries between monastic houses, Joseph Grossi examines various forms of cultural affirmation and manipulation. Angles on a Kingdom shows that, over the course of roughly two and a half centuries, the literary metamorphoses of East Anglia hint at the region’s recurring tensions with its neighbours – tensions which suggest that writers who sought to depict a coherent England downplayed what they deemed to be dangerous impulses emanating from the island’s easternmost corner.
Rewriting the Old Testament in Anglo-Saxon Verse
Author: Samantha Zacher
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441150935
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
The Bible played a crucial role in shaping Anglo-Saxon national and cultural identity. However, access to Biblical texts was necessarily limited to very few individuals in Medieval England. In this book, Samantha Zacher explores how the very earliest English Biblical poetry creatively adapted, commented on and spread Biblical narratives and traditions to the wider population. Systematically surveying the manuscripts of surviving poems, the book shows how these vernacular poets commemorated the Hebrews as God's 'chosen people' and claimed the inheritance of that status for Anglo-Saxon England. Drawing on contemporary translation theory, the book undertakes close readings of the poems Exodus, Daniel and Judith in order to examine their methods of adaptation for their particular theologico-political circumstances and the way they portray and problematize Judaeo-Christian religious identities.
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441150935
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
The Bible played a crucial role in shaping Anglo-Saxon national and cultural identity. However, access to Biblical texts was necessarily limited to very few individuals in Medieval England. In this book, Samantha Zacher explores how the very earliest English Biblical poetry creatively adapted, commented on and spread Biblical narratives and traditions to the wider population. Systematically surveying the manuscripts of surviving poems, the book shows how these vernacular poets commemorated the Hebrews as God's 'chosen people' and claimed the inheritance of that status for Anglo-Saxon England. Drawing on contemporary translation theory, the book undertakes close readings of the poems Exodus, Daniel and Judith in order to examine their methods of adaptation for their particular theologico-political circumstances and the way they portray and problematize Judaeo-Christian religious identities.
Antisemitism in the North
Author: Jonathan Adams
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110632284
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
Is research on antisemitism even necessary in countries with a relatively small Jewish population? Absolutely, as this volume shows. Compared to other countries, research on antisemitism in the Nordic countries (Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden) is marginalized at an institutional and staffing level, especially as far as antisemitism beyond German fascism, the Second World War, and the Holocaust is concerned. Furthermore, compared to scholarship on other prejudices and minority groups, issues concerning Jews and anti-Jewish stereotypes remain relatively underresearched in Scandinavia – even though antisemitic stereotypes have been present and flourishing in the North ever since the arrival of Christianity, and long before the arrival of the first Jewish communities. This volume aims to help bring the study of antisemitism to the fore, from the medieval period to the present day. Contributors from all the Nordic countries describe the status of as well as the challenges and desiderata for the study of antisemitism in their respective countries.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110632284
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
Is research on antisemitism even necessary in countries with a relatively small Jewish population? Absolutely, as this volume shows. Compared to other countries, research on antisemitism in the Nordic countries (Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden) is marginalized at an institutional and staffing level, especially as far as antisemitism beyond German fascism, the Second World War, and the Holocaust is concerned. Furthermore, compared to scholarship on other prejudices and minority groups, issues concerning Jews and anti-Jewish stereotypes remain relatively underresearched in Scandinavia – even though antisemitic stereotypes have been present and flourishing in the North ever since the arrival of Christianity, and long before the arrival of the first Jewish communities. This volume aims to help bring the study of antisemitism to the fore, from the medieval period to the present day. Contributors from all the Nordic countries describe the status of as well as the challenges and desiderata for the study of antisemitism in their respective countries.
Inhabited Spaces
Author: Nicole Guenther Discenza
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 148751154X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
We tend to think of early medieval people as unsophisticated about geography because their understandings of space and place often differed from ours, yet theirs were no less complex. Anglo-Saxons conceived of themselves as living at the centre of a cosmos that combined order and plenitude, two principles in a constant state of tension. In Inhabited Spaces, Nicole Guenther Discenza examines a variety of Anglo-Latin and Old English texts to shed light on Anglo-Saxon understandings of space. Anglo-Saxon models of the universe featured a spherical earth at the centre of a spherical universe ordered by God. They sought to shape the universe into knowable places, from where the earth stood in the cosmos, to the kingdoms of different peoples, and to the intimacy of the hall. Discenza argues that Anglo-Saxon works both construct orderly place and illuminate the limits of human spatial control.
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 148751154X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
We tend to think of early medieval people as unsophisticated about geography because their understandings of space and place often differed from ours, yet theirs were no less complex. Anglo-Saxons conceived of themselves as living at the centre of a cosmos that combined order and plenitude, two principles in a constant state of tension. In Inhabited Spaces, Nicole Guenther Discenza examines a variety of Anglo-Latin and Old English texts to shed light on Anglo-Saxon understandings of space. Anglo-Saxon models of the universe featured a spherical earth at the centre of a spherical universe ordered by God. They sought to shape the universe into knowable places, from where the earth stood in the cosmos, to the kingdoms of different peoples, and to the intimacy of the hall. Discenza argues that Anglo-Saxon works both construct orderly place and illuminate the limits of human spatial control.
Place and Space in the Medieval World
Author: Meg Boulton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315413639
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
This book addresses the critical terminologies of place and space (and their role within medieval studies) in a considered and critical manner, presenting a scholarly introduction written by the editors alongside thematic case studies that address a wide range of visual and textual material. The chapters consider the extant visual and textual sources from the medieval period alongside contemporary scholarly discussions to examine place and space in their wider critical context, and are written by specialists in a range of disciplines including art history, archaeology, history, and literature.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315413639
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
This book addresses the critical terminologies of place and space (and their role within medieval studies) in a considered and critical manner, presenting a scholarly introduction written by the editors alongside thematic case studies that address a wide range of visual and textual material. The chapters consider the extant visual and textual sources from the medieval period alongside contemporary scholarly discussions to examine place and space in their wider critical context, and are written by specialists in a range of disciplines including art history, archaeology, history, and literature.
The Etiquette of Early Northern Verse
Author: Roberta Frank
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268202516
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
In The Etiquette of Early Northern Verse, Roberta Frank peers into the northern poet’s workshop, eavesdropping as Old English and Old Norse verse reveal their craft secrets. This book places two vernacular poetries of the long Viking Age into conversation, revealing their membership in a single community of taste, a traditional stylistic ecology that did serious political and historical work. Each chapter seeks the codes of a now-extinct verse technique. The first explores the underlying architecture of the two poetries, their irregularities of pace, startling formal conventions, and tight verbal detail work. The passage of time has worn away most of the circumstantial details that literary scholars in later periods take for granted, but the public relations savvy and aural and syntactic signals of early northern verse remain to some extent retrievable and relatable, an etiquette prized and presumably understood by its audiences. The second and longest chapter investigates the techniques used by early northern poets to retrieve and organize the symmetries of language. It illustrates how supererogatory alliteration and rhyme functioned as aural punctuation, marking off structural units and highlighting key moments in the texts. The third and final chapter describes the extent to which both corpora reveled in negations, litotes, indirection, and down-toners, modes that forced audiences to read between half-lines, to hear what was not said. By decluttering and stripping away excess, by drawing words through a tight mesh of meter, alliteration, and rhyme, the early northern poet filtered out dross and stitched together a poetics of stark contrasts and forebodings. Poets and lovers of poetry of all periods and places will find much to enjoy here. So will students in Old English and Old Norse courses.
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268202516
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
In The Etiquette of Early Northern Verse, Roberta Frank peers into the northern poet’s workshop, eavesdropping as Old English and Old Norse verse reveal their craft secrets. This book places two vernacular poetries of the long Viking Age into conversation, revealing their membership in a single community of taste, a traditional stylistic ecology that did serious political and historical work. Each chapter seeks the codes of a now-extinct verse technique. The first explores the underlying architecture of the two poetries, their irregularities of pace, startling formal conventions, and tight verbal detail work. The passage of time has worn away most of the circumstantial details that literary scholars in later periods take for granted, but the public relations savvy and aural and syntactic signals of early northern verse remain to some extent retrievable and relatable, an etiquette prized and presumably understood by its audiences. The second and longest chapter investigates the techniques used by early northern poets to retrieve and organize the symmetries of language. It illustrates how supererogatory alliteration and rhyme functioned as aural punctuation, marking off structural units and highlighting key moments in the texts. The third and final chapter describes the extent to which both corpora reveled in negations, litotes, indirection, and down-toners, modes that forced audiences to read between half-lines, to hear what was not said. By decluttering and stripping away excess, by drawing words through a tight mesh of meter, alliteration, and rhyme, the early northern poet filtered out dross and stitched together a poetics of stark contrasts and forebodings. Poets and lovers of poetry of all periods and places will find much to enjoy here. So will students in Old English and Old Norse courses.
Compelling God
Author: Stephanie Clark
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487514387
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 331
Book Description
While prayer is generally understood as "communion with God" modern forms of spirituality prefer "communion" that is non-petitionary and wordless. This preference has unduly influenced modern scholarship on historic methods of prayer particularly concerning Anglo-Saxon spirituality. In Compelling God, Stephanie Clark examines the relationship between prayer, gift giving, the self, and community in Anglo-Saxon England. Clark’s analysis of the works of Bede, Ælfric, and Alfred utilizes anthropologic and economic theories of exchange in order to reveal the ritualized, gift-giving relationship with God that Anglo-Saxon prayer espoused. Anglo-Saxon prayer therefore should be considered not merely within the usual context of contemplation, rumination, and meditation but also within the context of gift exchange, offering, and sacrifice. Compelling God allows us to see how practices of prayer were at the centre of social connections through which Anglo-Saxons conceptualized a sense of their own personal and communal identity.
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487514387
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 331
Book Description
While prayer is generally understood as "communion with God" modern forms of spirituality prefer "communion" that is non-petitionary and wordless. This preference has unduly influenced modern scholarship on historic methods of prayer particularly concerning Anglo-Saxon spirituality. In Compelling God, Stephanie Clark examines the relationship between prayer, gift giving, the self, and community in Anglo-Saxon England. Clark’s analysis of the works of Bede, Ælfric, and Alfred utilizes anthropologic and economic theories of exchange in order to reveal the ritualized, gift-giving relationship with God that Anglo-Saxon prayer espoused. Anglo-Saxon prayer therefore should be considered not merely within the usual context of contemplation, rumination, and meditation but also within the context of gift exchange, offering, and sacrifice. Compelling God allows us to see how practices of prayer were at the centre of social connections through which Anglo-Saxons conceptualized a sense of their own personal and communal identity.
Writing Battles
Author: Máire Ní Mhaonaigh
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 178672619X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
Battles have long featured prominently in historical consciousness, as moments when the balance of power was seen to have tipped, or when aspects of collective identity were shaped. But how have perspectives on warfare changed? How similar are present day ideologies of warfare to those of the medieval period? Looking back over a thousand years of British, Irish and Scandinavian battles, this significant collection of essays examines how different times and cultures have reacted to war, considering the changing roles of religion and technology in the experience and memorialisation of conflict. While fighting and killing have been deplored, glorified and everything in between across the ages, Writing Battles reminds us of the visceral impact left on those who come after.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 178672619X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
Battles have long featured prominently in historical consciousness, as moments when the balance of power was seen to have tipped, or when aspects of collective identity were shaped. But how have perspectives on warfare changed? How similar are present day ideologies of warfare to those of the medieval period? Looking back over a thousand years of British, Irish and Scandinavian battles, this significant collection of essays examines how different times and cultures have reacted to war, considering the changing roles of religion and technology in the experience and memorialisation of conflict. While fighting and killing have been deplored, glorified and everything in between across the ages, Writing Battles reminds us of the visceral impact left on those who come after.
Debating with Demons
Author: Christina M. Heckman
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1843845652
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
A consideration of the theme of demons as teachers in early English literature.
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1843845652
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
A consideration of the theme of demons as teachers in early English literature.