1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910463346003321

Autore

Mize Britt

Titolo

Traditional subjectivities : the Old English poetics of mentality / / Britt Mize

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Toronto, [Ontario] ; ; Buffalo, [New York] ; ; London, [England] : , : University of Toronto Press, , 2013

©2013

ISBN

1-4426-6134-8

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (304 p.)

Collana

Toronto Anglo-Saxon series ; ; 12

Disciplina

829/.1009

Soggetti

English poetry - Old English, ca. 450-1100 - History and criticism

Folk poetry, English (Old) - History and criticism

Oral tradition - England - History - To 1500

Characters and characteristics in literature

Subjectivity in literature

Emotions in literature

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. The Poetics of Mentality -- 2. Traditional Diction, Emergent Subjectivities -- 3. Traditional Subjectivities in the Political World -- Conclusions -- Bibliography -- Index -- Backmatter

Sommario/riassunto

Why is Old English poetry so preoccupied with mental actions and perspectives, giving readers access to minds of antagonists as freely as to those of protagonists?  Why are characters sometimes called into being for no apparent reason other than to embody a psychological state?  Britt Mize provides the first systematic investigation into these salient questions in Traditional Subjectivities.Through close analysis of vernacular poems alongside the most informative analogues in Latin, Old English prose, and Old Saxon, this work establishes an evidence-based foundation for new thinking about the nature of Old English poetic composition, including the 'poetics of mentality' that it exhibits.  Mize synthesizes two previously disconnected bodies of theory - the



oral-traditional theory of poetic composition, and current linguistic work on conventional language - to advance our understanding of how traditional phraseology makes meaning, as well as illuminate the political and social dimensions of surviving texts, through attention to Old English poets' impulse to explore subjective perspectives.