Dr%20Mark%20Atherton: List of publications

Across three thematically-linked sections, this volume charts the development of competing geographical, national, and imperial identities and communities in early medieval England. Literary works in Old English and Latin are considered alongside theological and historical texts from a range of disciplinary perspectives. Accounts of travel, foreign contacts, conversion, migration, landscape, nation, empire, and conquest are set within the continual flow of people and ideas from East to West, from continent to island and back, across the period. The fifteen contributors investigate how the early medieval English positioned themselves spatially and temporally in relation to their insular neighbours and other peoples and cultures. Several chapters explore the impact of Greek and Latin learning on Old English literature, while others extend the discussion beyond the parameters of Europe to consider connections with Asia and the Far East. Together these essays reflect ideas of inclusivity and exclusivity, connectivity and apartness, multiculturalism and insularity that shaped pre-Conquest England.

This edition of Bodley 22, the manuscript written in theLondon area, includes introduction, commentary and glossary, and breaks new ground in the study of late medieval vernacular translation and women's literary culture.

It describes a bloody skirmish along the banks of the tidal river Blackwater in the year 991, when the renowned Anglo-Saxon shield wall failed and was overwhelmed by a sizeable force of Danish marauders. The poem is one of the emblematic documents of the early Middle Ages in England; and its vibrant detail suggests that it was written soon after the battle. But as Mark Atherton reveals, in his authoritative treatment of this iconic text and its history, it is more. Maldon decisively changed attitudes at the English court which led to fresh policies that halted the advance of the Viking invader. This turning of the tide permitted the cultural renaissance centred on Winchester, which had accompanied the unification of England under King Edgar (r. 959 - 975), to continue - to the immeasurable profit of English identity and sense of self. Using his own vivid translations, the author shows how Maldon and its aftermath transformed the destiny of a nation.

Mark Atherton here shows how the stories, legends, biographies and chronicles of Anglo-Saxon England reflected both this exciting time of innovation as well as the myriad lives, loves and hates of the people who wrote them.