Babel and beyond: thinking through migration in Genesis A
December 2022
|
Chapter
|
Ideas of the World in Early Medieval English Literature
SBTMR
A close fitt: reading Beowulf fitt II with the Andreas-poet
October 2022
|
Journal article
|
Anglo-Saxon England
<p>Connections between <span class="italic">Andreas</span> and <span class="italic">Beowulf</span> have been the subject of much scholarly discussion. This article contributes to this discussion by arguing that the account of the Mermedonians’ discovery of and response to the loss of their prisoners in <span class="italic">Andreas</span> fitt X, which corresponds to chapters 22–3 of the poet’s putative Latin source, has been deliberately recast in ways intended to recall the account in fitt II of <span class="italic">Beowulf</span> of Grendel’s first attack on Heorot and the reactions of the Danish community. The connection argued for here is based not on verbal correspondences, but on embedded structural and thematic parallels. The <span class="italic">Andreas</span>-poet emerges as a careful and sophisticated reader, notable for their specifically literate and textual engagement with <span class="italic">Beowulf.</span> This observation has implications not only for our appreciation of the <span class="italic">Andreas</span>-poet’s art, but also for the transmission of <span class="italic">Beowulf</span> and for our understanding of Old English poetic practices more generally.</p>
FFR
Revolt in heaven: Lucifer’s treason in Genesis B
May 2019
|
Chapter
|
Treason: Medieval and Early Modern Adultery, Betrayal, and Shame
6 Revolt in Heaven: Lucifer’s Treason in Genesis B 147
April 2019
|
Chapter
|
Treason
“Modest but well-deserved claims”: The friendship of Samuel Fox and Joseph Bosworth and the study of Anglo-Saxon in the nineteenth century
August 2018
|
Journal article
|
Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik
Joseph Bosworth’s copy of Samuel Fox’s 1835 edition of The Metres of Boethius, presented to him by the editor, contains (pasted to the covers) a fragmentary record of the correspondence between the two men which must have extended from 1833 until Fox’s death in 1870. Partial and short as it is, this record of the two men’s correspondence, read in the context of other contemporary documents, gives an interesting (and sometimes amusing) insight into the practice of Anglo-Saxon scholarship in the period. This article will present the letters in this context, and examine the lasting friendship and collaboration of Fox and Bosworth against a backdrop of controversy, religious dispute, and patriotic fervour. In so doing, this article will also consider the legacy of Samuel Fox, a scholar now routinely marginalized in histories of the discipline, but who was held in high regard by at least some of his contemporaries.
correspondence, Oxford Movement, Joseph Bosworth, scholarship, Samuel Fox, Anglo-Saxon controversy, nineteenth century
M. R. Rambaran-Olm, ‘John the Baptist’s Prayer or The Descent into Hell’ from the Exeter Book: Text, Translation and Critical Study
June 2018
|
Journal article
|
Medium Aevum
Introduction to architectural representation in medieval England
May 2018
|
Journal article
|
Leeds Studies in English
Architecture is a special and important category of evidence for our understanding of medieval England; it is not only one of the most tangible categories of evidence for the period, but also one of the most accessible. The architectural remnants of the Middle Ages — from castles and cathedrals to village churches — provide many people’s first and most lasting point of contact with the medieval period and its culture. Such concrete survivals provide a direct link to the material experiences of medieval people, as well as to the ideologies and social or cultural practices which framed their lives.
Architecture and the medieval mind
May 2017
|
Other
|
University Church leaflet
A six-part series of talks which will focus on the important role that architecture – both physical and representational – played in the imaginative, artistic, and theological life of early medieval England. Talks will range from the layout and construction of actual early medieval buildings to the symbolic use of architecture in literary texts in order to demonstrate the pervasive importance of architecture in early medieval thought.
Landes to fela: Geography, topography and place in the Battle of Maldon
March 2017
|
Journal article
|
English Studies
Modern readers of The Battle of Maldon are often confronted in editions and anthologies with explanatory notes or even maps connecting the events of the poem to the present-day topography of Northey Island, in the Blackwater estuary near Maldon, Essex. The presence of such critical apparatus makes tacit or overt claims regarding the poem’s status as a witness to the historical battle fought in August 991. Yet the identification of Northey Island as either the location of the battle, or the location described by the poet, remains unproven. A too-ready acceptance of this hypothetical identification has unduly influenced the study of the poem, discouraging investigation into the poetic significance of the topography of the battlefield. In fact, the construction of a sense of local place is central to the poet’s technique, relating the threat posed by the Viking forces to contemporary concerns about landownership in the late Anglo-Saxon period.
Johanna Kramer, Between earth and heaven: Liminality and the Ascension of Christ in Anglo-Saxon literature.
January 2017
|
Journal article
|
Notes and Queries
Johanna Kramer’s new monograph insists upon the centrality of the Ascension in the religious and cultural life of Anglo-Saxon England. It focuses upon the ways in which complex abstract theology relating to the Ascension is communicated to lay and clerical audiences through art, liturgy, ritual, and various textual genres in Latin and the vernacular. Kramer emphasizes the skilful ways in which anonymous texts and images, as well as the works of well-known figures such as Bede and Ælfric, ‘pursue their larger goal of teaching Ascension theology with complexity and theological rigour’ (17).
Review
ASSOCIATIVE MEMORY AND THE COMPOSITION OF ÆLFRIC’S DOMINICA IN QUINQUAGESSIMA (CATHOLIC HOMILIES I 10)
January 2017
|
Journal article
|
Notes and Queries: for readers and writers, collectors and librarians
The gates of hell: Invasion and damnation in an anonymous old english easter vigil homily
January 2017
|
Journal article
|
Leeds Studies in English
Rewriting Gregory the Great: the prison analogy in Napier Homily I
August 2016
|
Journal article
|
Review of English Studies
The Old English homily known as Napier I survives in two distinct versions. At the heart of each version is a reworking of the opening chapter of Book IV of the Dialogi of Gregory the Great, the focus of which is an analogy comparing the epistemological limits facing humanity to the situation of a youth born in prison. Scholarly attention has focused primarily upon the different continuations of the two versions of Napier I and their connections to Archbishop Wulfstan II of York. This paper, however, is primarily concerned with the reworking of the Dialogi in the early part of the homily. My analysis shows how the Anglo-Saxon homilist consistently reworks Gregory’s Latin in ways that reflect the different concerns of the two writers. Where Gregory was concerned with providing reasoned, intellectual arguments to support belief in the mysteries of the faith, the author of the common core of Napier I adapts the Latin text for preaching purposes. As such, the text of Napier homily I both witnesses the importance of the Dialogi as a source in Anglo-Saxon England and provides an insight into the freedom with which such authoritative Latin sources could be adapted and reshaped by vernacular homilists.
Incarceration as judicial punishment in Anglo-Saxon England
January 2014
|
Chapter
|
Capital and Corporal Punishment in Anglo-Saxon England
John M. Hill (ed.), On the Aesthetics of Beowulf and Other Old English Poems.
September 2012
|
Journal article
|
Notes and Queries
Tiffany Beechy, The Poetics of Old English.
September 2012
|
Journal article
|
Notes and Queries
Literal and spiritual depths: re-thinking the "drygne seað" of Elene
January 2009
|
Journal article
|
Quaestio Insularis
SBTMR
Architectural Representation in Medieval England (Special Issue)
Other
|
Leeds Studies in English
Architectural Representation in Medieval Textual and Material Culture
