Alfredian prologues and epilogues /
"Prologues (or prefaces) and epilogues have featured in English literary culture from its very beginnings. A tradition of framing works written in English with these introductory and concluding pieces was established in the ninth century and continued to develop through the early medieval perio...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English English, Old (ca. 450-1100) |
| Language Notes: | Includes text in Old English with modern English translations, critical text in modern English. |
| Published: |
Oxford, United Kingdom ; New York, NY :
Oxford University Press,
[2023]
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| Subjects: |
| Summary: | "Prologues (or prefaces) and epilogues have featured in English literary culture from its very beginnings. A tradition of framing works written in English with these introductory and concluding pieces was established in the ninth century and continued to develop through the early medieval period and beyond. Amongst the surviving examples in Old English are the mid-ninth-century Codex Aureus Inscription, the prologues and epilogues written to accompany the works associated with the reign of Alfred the Great (871-99), two prefatory poems known as Aldhelm (composed in English, Latin and Greek) and Thureth, probably from the tenth and eleventh centuries respectively, and the prose prefaces to sets of homilies, saints' lives and other writings by the prolific late-tenth- and early-eleventh-century writer Ælfric. The focus of this book is on the prologues, epilogues, and other frame texts linked to works associated with Alfred's reign, which are edited here as a group for the first time. Highly varied, enigmatic, and not always reliable in the claims they make, these pieces offer intriguing glimpses not only into the authorship and circumstances of composition, translation, or transmission of the works written in or around Alfred's reign, but also more generally into the relationship between writer and reader in Anglo-Saxon England"-- |
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| Physical Description: | x, 296 pages ; 23 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references. |
| ISBN: | 0199692106 9780199692101 |