Nonhuman voices in Anglo-​Saxon literature and material culture

This book explores the voices of nonhuman things in Anglo-Saxon literature and material culture, making a valuable contribution to 'thing theory'. "Anglo-Saxon 'things' could talk. Nonhuman voices leap out from the Exeter Book Riddles, telling us how they were made or how they behave. The Franks Casket is a box of bone that alludes to its former fate as a whale that swam aground onto the shingle, and the Ruthwell monument is a stone column that speaks as if it were living wood, or a wounded body. In this book, James Paz uncovers the voice and agency that these nonhuman things have across Anglo-Saxon literature and material culture. He makes a new contribution to 'thing theory' and rethinks conventional divisions between animate human subjects and inanimate nonhuman objects in the early Middle Ages. Anglo-Saxon writers and craftsmen describe artefacts and animals through riddling forms or enigmatic language, balancing an attempt to speak and listen to things with an understanding that these nonhumans often elude, defy and withdraw from us. But the active role that things have in the early medieval world is also linked to the Germanic origins of the word, where a þing is a kind of assembly, with the ability to draw together other elements, creating assemblages in which human and nonhuman forces combine. Nonhuman voices in Anglo-Saxon literature and material culture invites us to rethink the concept of voice as a quality that is not simply imposed upon nonhumans but which inheres in their ways of existing and being in the world. It asks us to rethink the concept of agency as arising from within groupings of diverse elements, rather than always emerging from human actors alone." -- Back cover This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. This book is available as an open access ebook under a CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Nonhuman voices in Anglo-Saxon literature and material culture uncovers the voice and agency possessed by nonhuman things across Anglo-Saxon literature and material culture. It makes a new contribution to ‘thing theory'and rethinks conventional divisions between animate human subjects and inanimate nonhuman objects in the early Middle Ages. Anglo-Saxon writers and craftsmen describe artefacts and animals through riddling forms or enigmatic language, balancing an attempt to speak and listen to things with an understanding that these nonhumans often elude, defy and withdraw from us. But the active role that things have in the early medieval world is also linked to the Germanic origins of the word, where a þing is a kind of assembly, with the ability to draw together other elements, creating assemblages in which human and nonhuman forces combine. Nonhuman voices in Anglo-Saxon literature and material culture uncovers the voice and agency possessed by nonhuman things across Anglo-Saxon literature and material culture. It makes a new contribution to 'thing theory' and rethinks conventional divisions between animate human subjects and inanimate nonhuman objects in the early Middle Ages.Anglo-Saxon writers and craftsmen describe artefacts and animals through riddling forms or enigmatic language, balancing an attempt to speak and listen to things with an understanding that these nonhumans often elude, defy and withdraw from us. But the active role that things have in the early medieval world is also linked to the Germanic origins of the word, where a þing is a kind of assembly, with the ability to draw together other elements, creating assemblages in which human and nonhuman forces combine Front matter 1 Dedication 6 Contents 8 List of figures 9 Acknowledgements 10 Introduction: On Anglo-Saxon things 12 Æschere’s head, Grendel’s mother and the sword that isn’t a sword: Unreadable things in Beowulf 45 The ‘thingness’ of time in the Old English riddles of the Exeter Book and Aldhelm's Latin enigmata 70 The riddles of the Franks Casket: Enigmas, agency and assemblage 109 Assembling and reshaping Christianity in the Lives of St Cuthbert and Lindisfarne Gospels 150 The Dream of the Rood and the Ruthwell monument: Fragility, brokenness and failure 186 Afterword: Old things with new things to say 227 Bibliography 232 Index 244