Race and Ethnicity in Anglo-Saxon Literature (Studies in Medieval History and Culture, 24)

What makes English literature English ? This question inspires Stephen Harris's wide-ranging study of Old English literature. From Bede in the eighth century to Geoffrey of Monmouth in the twelfth, Harris explores the intersections of race and literature before the rise of imagined communities. Harris examines possible configurations of communities, illustrating dominant literary metaphors of race from Old English to its nineteenth-century critical reception. Literary voices in the England of Bede understood the limits of community primarily as racial or tribal, in keeping with the perceived divine division of peoples after their languages, and the extension of Christianity to Bede's Germanic neighbours was effected in part through metaphors of family and race. Harris demonstrates how King Alfred adapted Bede in the ninth century; how both exerted an effect on Archbishop Wulfstan in the eleventh; and how Old English poetry speaks to images of race. Book Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 4 Contents......Page 5 Acknowledgments......Page 16 Abbreviations and Short Titles......Page 18 Voices of Race......Page 20 The Election of the Angles......Page 64 King Alfred's Christendom......Page 102 Wulf among the Pagans......Page 126 Woden and Troy......Page 150 Ethnogenesis and The Battle of Maldon......Page 176 Notes......Page 204 Select Bibliography......Page 270 Index......Page 304 Ch. 1. Voices Of Race -- Ch. 2. The Election Of The Angles -- Ch. 3. King Alfred's Christendom -- Ch. 4. Wulf Among The Pagans -- Ch. 5. Woden And Troy -- Ch. 6. Ethnogenesis And The Battle Of Maldon. Stephen J. Harris. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 251-283) And Index.