Module description
This module explores the cultural power of Old English poetry in and across history. Working with poems drawn from the breadth of the early medieval period, this module investigates the textual and material circumstances of Old English poetry’s copying, survival and circulation in the medieval and modern world.
What does it mean to talk about ‘archives’ and ‘Old English’ poetry together? The module begins by considering the various early medieval forms in which Old English poetry survives – in manuscript and as inscription. It asks how a text might signify differently copied on a manuscript page or a large stone cross, as runes, text or hidden inscription. By examining Old English poetry in its primary contexts, we can think about how scribes and artists preserved texts and about how the earliest readers of this material engaged with it. The module asks how important immediate context is in relation to the workings of the text and what context can teach us about a text’s relations with history, culture and broader ideas of literary production. From here we will move on to explore how later copyists, editors, poets and archivists have engaged with Old English poetry, examining texts’ disciplinary, literary, cultural and technological histories, in order to better understand these texts in their broadest possible contexts.
Modern English translations of all texts will be provided; no previous experience with Old English necessary.
Assessment details
Ten-minute narrated Power Point, video or illustrated 1,500-word script with at least five images (50%) and 2,000 word essay (50%)
Teaching pattern
One two-hour seminar, weekly