Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (ASMAR), Vol. 24

Intertexts: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Culture, Presented to Paul E. Szarmach

Edited by Virginia Blanton (University of Missouri-Kansas City) and Helene Scheck (The University at Albany)
2008 | 448 + xxxii pp. | 14 ills. | Hardcover | 6 x 9 in | 978-0-86698-382-2 | MRTS 334
$58 | £50

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Paul E. Szarmach has demonstrated time and again that Anglo-Saxon literary culture is intertextual, that as a corpus it resonates with allusions from many disparate sources. Given his engagement with and support of inter- and multi-disciplinary studies, Intertexts brings together a range of traditionally isolated or disparate texts in a synergistically productive manner. Dr. Szarmach’s scholarship not only shows the relationships among texts, but it also intimates how we as modern readers and scholars are defining the value of these texts. As both scholar and editor, moreover, he has produced or supported work that frames, engages, and traces the intertextual; the twenty-six essays in this collection are organized specifically to reflect his interests in the field. In the first section, titled "(Re)Framing Insular Texts," contributors are at work reassessing received scholarly opinion and prompting further inquiry into insular texts. The section titled “Engaging Insular Culture” demonstrates how material artifacts, such as carvings, books, coins, and guild lists, work as texts and contexts for new understandings. The final section, "Tracing Textual Transmission," features essays that make connections between source texts and insular writings, as well as essays that discuss the dissemination of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. The collection Intertexts offers, therefore, a significant contribution to the field of Anglo-Saxon studies, even as it provides a fitting tribute to this renowned scholar.

Table of Contents

  • Roberta Frank: Sharing Words with Beowulf

  • Michael Lapidge: Old English Poetic Compounds: A Latin Perspective

  • Joseph B. Trahern, Jr.: Working the Boundary or Walking the Line? Late Old English Rhythmical Alliteration

  • Andy Orchard: Reconstructing The Ruin

  • Thomas D. Hill: The Baby on the Stone: Nativity as Sacrifice (The Old English Christ III, 1414–1425)

  • Rhonda L. McDaniel: Hnescnys: Weakness of Mind in the Works of Ælfric

  • Joel T. Rosenthal: Bede’s Ecclesiastical History: Numbers, Hard Data, and Longevity

  • Mechthild Gretsch: A Context for Resignation A?

  • Jane Roberts: A Man “boca gleaw” and His Musings

  • Carol Neuman de Vegvar: Reading the Franks Casket: Contexts and Audiences

  • Charles D. Wright: Why the Left Hand is Longer (or Shorter) than the Right: Some Irish Analogues for an Etiological Legend in the Homiliary of St. Père de Chartres

  • Frederick M. Biggs: A Picture of Paul in a Parker Manuscript

  • M. R. Godden: King and Counselor in the Alfredian Boethius

  • Helen Damico: Beowulf’s Foreign Queen and the Politics of Eleventh-Century England

  • Robert L. Schichler: Ending on a Giant Theme: The Utrecht and Harley Psalters, and the Pointed-Helmet Coinage of Cnut

  • Patrick W. Conner: Parish Guilds and the Production of Old English Literature in the Public Sphere

  • Catherine E. Karkov: Pictured in the Heart: The Ediths at Wilton

  • Thomas N. Hall: The Armaments of John the Baptist in Blickling Homily 14 and the Exeter Book Descent into Hell

  • David F. Johnson: Spiritual Combat and the Land of Canaan in Guthlac A

  • George Hardin Brown: Ciceronianism in Bede and Alcuin

  • Joyce Hill: Ælfric and Haymo Revisited

  • E. Gordon Whatley: Eugenia Before Ælfric: A Preliminary Report on the Transmission of an Early Medieval Legend

  • Donald G. Scragg: The Vercelli Homilies and Kent

  • Hans Sauer: Archbishops, Lords, and Concubines: Words for People and their Word-Formation Patterns in Early English (Épinal-Erfurt Glossary and Ælfric’s Glossary)–A Sketch

  • Helmut Gneuss: More Old English from Manuscripts

  • Jonathan Wilcox: New Old English Texts: The Expanding Corpus of Old English