Cover Image

A history of Old English literature /

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Alexander, Michael, 1941-
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: Peterborough, Ont. : Broadview Press, [2002]
Subjects:
English literature > Old English, ca. 450-1100 > History and criticism.
Anglo-Saxons > Intellectual life.
Letterkunde.
Oudengels.
Littérature anglaise > ca 450-1100 (Vieil anglais) > Histoire et critique.
Anglo-Saxons > Vie intellectuelle.
Table of Contents:
  • 1: Perspectives
  • What has survived
  • Songs and scribes
  • The end of heathenism
  • The languages of Britain
  • 2: England 449-1066: a sketch
  • Old English
  • Conquest
  • Conversion
  • Sutton Hoo and warrior society
  • Conversion and accommodation
  • Bede's Northumbria
  • Theodore and a learned church
  • Wessex
  • The Benedictine revival
  • 3: Heroic poetry including Beowulf
  • The heroic ethos
  • Germanic heroic poetry
  • Versification
  • Poetic diction
  • Formulaic composition
  • The uses of poetry
  • Beowulf
  • 4: The world's wonder: riddles
  • Riddles
  • Verse wisdom
  • 5. Bede and Cædmon
  • The ecclesiastical history
  • Cædmon
  • 6: The poetic elegies
  • Wanderer and Seafarer
  • Other elegies
  • 7: Alfred and old English prose
  • The Anglo-Saxon chronicle
  • Books most needful
  • 8: Verse of the Christian establishment
  • Saints' lives: Andreas
  • Elene
  • Christ
  • The dream of the Rood
  • 9: The Benedictine revival
  • Aelfric's Colloquy
  • Aelfric's homilies
  • Wulfstan
  • Verse of the tenth century
  • The battle of Maldon
  • 10: Afterwards: Old and middle
  • Late prose.