Direct Speech in Beowulf and Other Old English Narrative Poems
-
Select format
-
- Publisher:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Publication date:
- June 2016
- June 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781782046547
- 9781843844341
- Dimensions:
- Weight & Pages:
- 00kg,
- Dimensions:
- Weight & Pages:
- Subjects:
- Literature, Anglo Saxon and Medieval Literature
- Series:
- Anglo-Saxon Studies
You may already have access via personal or institutional login- Subjects:
- Literature, Anglo Saxon and Medieval Literature
- Series:
- Anglo-Saxon Studies
Show more authors 
You may already have access via personal or institutional login
Book description
Some of the most celebrated passages of Old English poetry are speeches: Beowulf and Unferth's verbal contest, Hrothgar's words of advice, Satan's laments, Juliana's words of defiance, etc. Yet DirectSpeech, as a stylistic device, has remained largely under-examined and under-theorized in studies of the corpus. As a consequence, many analyses are unduly influenced by anachronistic conceptions ofDirect Speech, leading to problematic interpretations, not least concerning irony and implicit characterisation.
This book uses linguistic theories to reassess the role of Direct Speech in Old English narrative poetry. Beowulf is given a great deal of attention, because it is a major poem and because it is the focus of much of the existing scholarship on this subject, but it is examined in a broader poetic context: the poem belongs to a wider tradition and thus needs to be understood in that context. The texts examined include several major Old English narrative poems, in particular the two Genesis, Christ and Satan, Andreas, Elene, Juliana and Guthlac A.
Elise Louviot is a Lecturer at the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne (France) and a specialist of OldEnglish poetry. Her research interests include orality, tradition, formulas and the linguistic expression of subjectivity.
Contents
Contents
Metrics
Full text views
Full text views helpTotal number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...
* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.
Usage data cannot currently be displayed.
Accessibility standard: Unknown
Why this information is here
This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.
Accessibility Information
Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.