New Readings in the Vercelli Book (Toronto Anglo-Saxon Series)

The late tenth-century Vercelli Book (Vercelli, Biblioteca Capitolare CXVII) contains one of the earliest surviving collections of homilies and poetry in the English language. The manuscript's combination of poetry and homiletic prose has generated intense scholarly debate, and there is no consensus concerning the original purpose of the compiler. New Readings in the Vercelli Book addresses central questions concerning the manuscript's intended use, mode of compilation, and purpose, and offers a variety of approaches on such topics as orthography, style, genre, theme, and source-study. The contributors include some of the foremost Vercelli experts, as well as the two most recent editors of the homilies. The remarkable essays in this volume offer the first sustained literary analysis of both the poetry and prose texts of the Vercelli Book, providing important new perspectives on a dynamic and valuable historical document. Cover Contents Abbreviations Introduction The Vercelli Prose and Anglo-Saxon Literary History Studies in the Language of Copyists of the Vercelli Homilies The Portents at Christ’s Birth in Vercelli Homilies V and VI: Some Analogues from Medieval Sermons and Biblical Commentaries The Source of Vercelli VII: An Address to Women Vercelli Homily XV and The Apocalypse of Thomas The ‘Homiletics’ of the Vercelli Book Poems: The Case of Homiletic Fragment I The Dream of the Rood: Cross-References Vercelli Homilies XIX–XXI, the Ascension Day Homily in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 162, and the Catechetical Tradition from Augustine to Wulfstan The Reburial of the Cross in the Old English Elene The Journey Motif in the Poems of the Vercelli Book The Vercelli Book and Its Texts: A Guide to Scholarship Index of Manuscripts General Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T V W New Readings in the Vercelli Book addresses central questions concerning the manuscript's intended use, mode of compilation, and purpose, and offers a variety of approaches on such topics as orthography, style, genre, theme, and source-study. The contributors include some of the foremost Vercelli experts, as well as the two most recent editors of the homilies. The remarkable essays in this volume offer the first sustained literary analysis of both the poetry and prose texts of the Vercelli Book, providing important new perspectives on a dynamic and valuable historical document."--Pub. desc