A01=Andy Orchard
Anglo-Saxon England
Author_Andy Orchard
Category=DSBB
English studies
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
interpretation
linguitics
literary analysis
manuscript studies
medieval history
medieval studies
Middle English
Old English
prose
Product details
- ISBN 9781843840299
- Weight: 640g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 01 Feb 2005
- Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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A generous, energetic, engaging work... will be important to Beowulf study for years to come. THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW
Beowulf is the best known and most closely studied literary work surviving from Anglo-Saxon England, and the modern reader is faced with a bewildering number and variety of interpretations about such basic matters as the date, provenance, and significance of the poem. A Critical Companion to Beowulf addresses these and other issues, reviewing and synthesising previous scholarship, as well as offering fresh perspectives. After an initial introduction to the poem, attention is focused on such matters as the manuscript context and approaches to dating the poem; the particular style, diction, and structure of this most idiosyncratic of Old English texts; the background tothe poem (considered not simply with respect to historical and legendary material, but also in the context of myth and fable); the specific roles of selected individual characters, both major and minor; and the original intendedaudience and perceived purpose of the poem. A final chapter describes the range of critical approaches which have been applied to the poem in the past, and points towards directions for future study.
ANDY ORCHARD is Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, University of Oxford
