Performance in Beowulf and other Old English poems Breeze, Steven J. A. creator author. text bibliography Criticism, interpretation, etc. enk 2022 2022 monographic eng print xi, 264 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm. Acts of performance, such as music, storytelling, and poetry recital, have made significant contributions to the rediscovery and widening popularity of Old English poetry. However, while these performances capture the imagination, they also influence an audience's view of the world of the original poems, even to propagating certain assumptions, particularly those to do with performance practices. By stripping away these assumptions, this book aims to uncover the ways in which representations of performance in Old English poetry are intimately associated with poetic production and fundamental cultural concerns. Through an examination of Beowulf, diverse wisdom poems, and the "artist" poems Deor and Widsith, it proposes that poets constructed an imaginary domain of "poetic performance", which negotiated tensions between early medieval creativity and core social beliefs. It also shows how the poems' relationship with oral methods of composition and circulation weakened in later medieval poetry as both language and poetic form altered. Overall, the book explores what depictions of performance within these texts can tell us about early medieval conceptualisations, processes, and practices, in the poetic imagination and in wider culture. Through an analysis of Eddic poetry and Lazamon's Brut, it also highlights a tradition of "poetic performance" in English poetics. Introduction: Realising the intangible -- Instruments of the poet : exploiting the Old English lexis -- Multiformity and the orality of associative, architectonic poetics -- Providence and pleasure : performance as symbol -- Storytelling in Beowulf and meta-storytelling in Andreas -- Wisdom and power : philosophies of performance -- Theme songs : an English tradition of performance? -- The lure of the lyre : interpretation, reenactment and the corpus -- Conclusion: 'Poetic performance'. Steven J. A. Breeze. Includes bibliographical references (pages 237-254) and index. Beowulf Criticism, Textual English poetry Old English, ca. 450-1100 History and criticism Performance poetry Poésie anglaise ca 450-1100 (Vieil anglais) Histoire et critique Poésie-performance Beowulf English poetry Old English Performance poetry 450-1100 fast PR205 .B74 2022 829/.1 Anglo-Saxon studies ; 45 9781843846451 1843846454 ERASA 220909 20250129165238.0 in00004600350 eng