The Shapes of Early English Poetry : Style, Form, History

This volume contributes to the study of early English poetics. In these essays, several related approaches and fields of study radiate outward from poetics, including stylistics, literary history, word studies, gender studies, metrics, and textual criticism. By combining and redirecting these traditional scholarly methods, as well as exploring newer ones such as object-oriented ontology and sound studies, these essays demonstrate how poetry responds to its intellectual, literary, and material contexts. The contributors propose to connect the small (syllables, words, and phrases) to the large (histories, emotions, faiths, secrets). In doing so, they attempt to work magic on the texts they consider: turning an ordinary word into something strange and new, or demonstrating texture, difference, and horizontality where previous eyes had perceived only smoothness, sameness, and verticality. Acknowledgments ix Roberta Frank’s publications, 1970 – present x Introduction / Irina Dumitrescu and Eric Weiskott 1 Part 1. Seasons 13 Weathering Time in the 'Wanderer' / Mary Kate Hurley 15 'Beowulf' as Anti-Virgilian World Literature: Archaeology, Ekphrasis, and Epic / Andrew James Johnston 37 A Portrait of the Translator as Grendel’s Mother: The Postcolonial Feminist Polyphony of Meghan Purvis's 'Beowulf' / Denis Ferhatović 59 Part 2. Engines 83 Light Verse in Anglo-Saxon England / Emily V. Thornbury 85 The 'Paris Psalter' and English Literary History / Eric Weiskott 107 Generative Form / Sarah Elliott Novacich 135 Kennings and Things: Towards an Object-Oriented Skaldic Poetics / Christopher Abram 161 Part 3. Discordance 189 Lydgate's Missing 'Ballade' and the Bibliographical Imaginary / Andrew Kraebel 191 Spoiled and Eaten: Figures of Absorption in Medieval English Poetry / Irina Dumitrescu 215 'Gehyre se ðe wille': Sonic Worlds in Old Testament Poetry / Jordan Zweck 237 Notes on Contributors 261 Index 263 Cover 1 Contents 9 Acknowledgments 11 Roberta Frank’s Publications, 1970–present 12 Introduction Irina Dumitrescu and Eric Weiskott 23 Part 1: Seasons 35 Weathering Time in the "Wanderer" Mary Kate Hurley 37 "Beowulf" as Anti-Virgilian World Literature: Archaeology, Ekphrasis, and Epic Andrew James Johnston 59 A Portrait of the Translator as Grendel’s Mother: The Postcolonial Feminist Polyphony of Meghan Purvis’s "Beowulf" Denis Ferhatović 81 Part 2: Engines 105 Light Verse in Anglo-Saxon England Emily V. Thornbury 107 The "Paris Psalter" and English Literary History Eric Weiskott 129 Generative Form Sarah Elliott Novacich 157 Kennings and Things: Towards an Object-Oriented Skaldic Poetics Christopher Abram 183 Part 3: Discordance 211 Lydgate’s Missing "Ballade" and the Bibliographical Imaginary Andrew Kraebel 213 Spoiled and Eaten: Figures of Absorption in Medieval English Poetry Irina Dumitrescu 237 "Gehyre se ðe wille": Sonic Worlds in Old Testament Poetry Jordan Zweck 259 Notes on Contributors 283 Index 285