Authors, audiences, and Old English verse / / Thomas A. Bredehoft

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910458620203321
• Autore: Bredehoft Thomas A.
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Toronto, [Ontario] ; ; Buffalo, [New York] ; ; London, [England] : , : University of Toronto Press, , 2009; ©2009
• ISBN: 1-4426-9841-1
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (258 p.)
• Collana: Toronto Anglo-Saxon Series ; ; 5
• Disciplina: 829.1009
• Soggetti: English poetry - Old English, ca. 450-1100 - History and criticism; English language - Old English, ca. 450-1100 - Versification; Electronic books.
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Bibliographic Note -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Authorship and Anonymity in Old English Verse -- 1. Manuscript Audiences and Other Audiences -- 2. The Audience for Saxon Songs in the Late Ninth Century -- 3. Literate Poetic Composition in Tenth-Century Classical Poems -- 4. What Has Ælfric to Do with Maldon? -- 5. Eleventh-Century Traditions of Formulaic Composition -- 6. Conclusion -- Appendix. Two Unrecognized Late Old English Poems -- Bibliography -- Index -- Backmatter
• Sommario/riassunto: Authors, Audiences, and Old English Verse re-examines the Anglo-Saxon poetic tradition from the eighth to the eleventh centuries and reconsiders the significance of formulaic parallels and the nature of poetic authorship in Old English.Offering a new vision of much of Old English literary history, Thomas A. Bredehoft traces a tradition of 'literate-formulaic' composition in the period and contends that many phrases conventionally considered oral formulas are in fact borrowings or "ations. His identification of previously unrecognized Old English poems and his innovative arguments about the dates, places of composition, influences, and even possible authors for a variety of tenth- and eleventh-century poems illustrate that the failure of ; scholars to recognize the late Old English verse tradition has seriously hampered our literary understanding of the period. Provocative and bold, Authors, Audiences and Old English Verse has the potential to transform modern understandings of the classical Old English poetic tradition.