This course is will introduce methods and methodologies for the study of the Early English language and literature
in the digital age as well as considering the modern cultural impact of medieval English literature, or Medievalism,
epitomized by the enormous popularity J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and derivative works of literature,
television, film and digital media including video games. Primary sources are chosen to represent a selection of
texts often omitted from survey courses of Old English literature and Old English readers, thus providing examples
of how the reception of established literary canon can distort our perception of a language and its representative
literature.
Poslední úprava: Balíková Zdeňka, Mgr. (19.06.2024)
This course is will introduce methods and methodologies for the study of the Early English language and literature
in the digital age as well as considering the modern cultural impact of medieval English literature, or Medievalism,
epitomized by the enormous popularity J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and derivative works of literature,
television, film and digital media including video games. Primary sources are chosen to represent a selection of
texts often omitted from survey courses of Old English literature and Old English readers, thus providing examples
of how the reception of established literary canon can distort our perception of a language and its representative
literature.
Poslední úprava: Balíková Zdeňka, Mgr. (19.06.2024)
Podmínky zakončení předmětu -
Students are expected to prepare for each class by reading an assigned primary source text and one piece of secondary literature. Assessment will be through frequent practical homework assignments in addition to class participation, and an extended essay.
Poslední úprava: Balíková Zdeňka, Mgr. (19.06.2024)
Students are expected to prepare for each class by reading an assigned primary source text and one piece of secondary literature. Assessment will be through frequent practical homework assignments in addition to class participation, and an extended essay.
Poslední úprava: Balíková Zdeňka, Mgr. (19.06.2024)
Sylabus -
1. Questions of Canon in the age of digitized manuscripts I: Is Old English literature “medieval” or “late antique”?
This seminar considers what defines the medieval, and ultimately asks whether Old English literature can be considered medieval, given the deep literary and linguistic dependence of both Anglo-Latin and Old English literature on the Latin literature of late antiquity, as well as the fact that manuscripts containing Old English are contemporaneous with some of the oldest witnesses to the Greek and Latin Classics.
Practicalities of manuscript transcription relevant to Old English will be introduced.
2. Questions of Canon in the age of digitized manuscripts II: Beyond the four poetic codices.
Considers the problem that most scholarship concerning Old English literature concerns the contents of just four manuscript codices, or approximately two percent of the surviving corpus of Old English literature.
Practicalities of manuscript transcription will be continued.
3. Lexicography and lexical tools in the digital age I: Old English anatomical terms.
This seminar introduces the basic concepts of lexicography, i.e. the ways in which the meaning of a word is determined using a digital corpus. Students are taught not just how to read a digital dictionary entry, but should gain insight into how and why modern dictionaries are compiled. Examples will be taken from medical texts to illustrate how translations and glosses are especially useful in establishing the meaning of words where they are rarely attested in a given corpus.
4. Lexicography and lexical tools in the digital age II: OE orcen, Icl. orkn, and Tolkien’s “orcs”.
This seminar considers that one of Tolkien’s most iconic fictional creations, the ‘orc’, may in fact be based on a lexicological mistake in the reading of a single line of Beowulf.
5. Monsters and Monstrosity I: Orientalism, the Wonders of the East and the Letter of Alexander.
This seminar introduces some of the most controversial aspects of medieval studies in contemporary society by directly addressing those text from antiquity which depicted the inhabitants of Ethiopia, India and beyond as foreign, exotic, and even monstrous.
6. Monsters and Monstrosity II: Andreas in the city of cannibals and medieval body horror.
Although the Old English narrative poem Andreas is often considered derivative of Beowulf, the derivation quite possibly goes the other way given the second century origins of the Acta Andreae et Matthiae apud anthropophagos. This ancient page turner would rival modern writers in evoking feelings of unease through depictions of gore: The Silence of the Lambs meets Saw in Old English alliterative verse, with a flimsy and indeed apocryphal hagiographical moral justification in this Old English translation of an ancient page-turner from the time of Marcus Aurelius.
7. Hagiography and biography I: The Old English Martyrology
8. Hagiography and biography II: The Old English version of Gregory‘s Dialogues
9. The Vercelli Homilies, New Testament Apocrypha and Grendel’s Mere.
10. Modern Medievalisms I: The mead hall in Beowulf, The Lord of the Rings and Skyrim.
11. Modern Medievalisms II: Beowulf in film
12. Modern controversies I: the use and abuse of the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’
13. Modern controversies II: gender and violence in medieval literature and George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire.
14. Assessment
Poslední úprava: Balíková Zdeňka, Mgr. (19.06.2024)
1. Questions of Canon in the age of digitized manuscripts I: Is Old English literature “medieval” or “late antique”?
This seminar considers what defines the medieval, and ultimately asks whether Old English literature can be considered medieval, given the deep literary and linguistic dependence of both Anglo-Latin and Old English literature on the Latin literature of late antiquity, as well as the fact that manuscripts containing Old English are contemporaneous with some of the oldest witnesses to the Greek and Latin Classics.
Practicalities of manuscript transcription relevant to Old English will be introduced.
2. Questions of Canon in the age of digitized manuscripts II: Beyond the four poetic codices.
Considers the problem that most scholarship concerning Old English literature concerns the contents of just four manuscript codices, or approximately two percent of the surviving corpus of Old English literature.
Practicalities of manuscript transcription will be continued.
3. Lexicography and lexical tools in the digital age I: Old English anatomical terms.
This seminar introduces the basic concepts of lexicography, i.e. the ways in which the meaning of a word is determined using a digital corpus. Students are taught not just how to read a digital dictionary entry, but should gain insight into how and why modern dictionaries are compiled. Examples will be taken from medical texts to illustrate how translations and glosses are especially useful in establishing the meaning of words where they are rarely attested in a given corpus.
4. Lexicography and lexical tools in the digital age II: OE orcen, Icl. orkn, and Tolkien’s “orcs”.
This seminar considers that one of Tolkien’s most iconic fictional creations, the ‘orc’, may in fact be based on a lexicological mistake in the reading of a single line of Beowulf.
5. Monsters and Monstrosity I: Orientalism, the Wonders of the East and the Letter of Alexander.
This seminar introduces some of the most controversial aspects of medieval studies in contemporary society by directly addressing those text from antiquity which depicted the inhabitants of Ethiopia, India and beyond as foreign, exotic, and even monstrous.
6. Monsters and Monstrosity II: Andreas in the city of cannibals and medieval body horror.
Although the Old English narrative poem Andreas is often considered derivative of Beowulf, the derivation quite possibly goes the other way given the second century origins of the Acta Andreae et Matthiae apud anthropophagos. This ancient page turner would rival modern writers in evoking feelings of unease through depictions of gore: The Silence of the Lambs meets Saw in Old English alliterative verse, with a flimsy and indeed apocryphal hagiographical moral justification in this Old English translation of an ancient page-turner from the time of Marcus Aurelius.
7. Hagiography and biography I: The Old English Martyrology
8. Hagiography and biography II: The Old English version of Gregory‘s Dialogues
9. The Vercelli Homilies, New Testament Apocrypha and Grendel’s Mere.
10. Modern Medievalisms I: The mead hall in Beowulf, The Lord of the Rings and Skyrim.
11. Modern Medievalisms II: Beowulf in film
12. Modern controversies I: the use and abuse of the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’
13. Modern controversies II: gender and violence in medieval literature and George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire.
14. Assessment
Poslední úprava: Balíková Zdeňka, Mgr. (19.06.2024)
Studijní opory -
Recommended Reading
Campbell, A. Old English Grammar, (Oxford, OUP, 1983)
Doyle, C., ‘Dweorg in Old English: Aspects of Disease Terminology’ Quaestio Insularis 9 (2008) 99-117
Liuzza, R. M. ‘Scribes of the Mind: Editing Old English in Theory and Practice’ in The Power of Words: Anglo-Saxon Studies Presented to Donald G. Scragg on his Seventieth Birthday, ed. H. Magennis and J. Willcox Medieval European Studies 7, (Morgantown, 2006), pp. 243-77
Textual and Material Culture in Anglo-Saxon England: Thomas Northcote Toller and the Toller Memorial Lectures ed. D. Scragg (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003) - selected chapters.
Schein, S. L. ‘Our Debt to Greece and Rome: Canon, Class and Ideology’ in A Companion to Classical Receptions, ed. L. Hardwick and C. Stray (Blackwell, 2007) pp. 75-85
Toswell, M. J., ‘Genre and the Dictionary of Old English’ in Old English Lexicology and Lexicography, Essays in Honor of Antonette dePaolo Healey, ed. M. Clegg Hyer, H. Momma and S. Zacher (Cambridge: D S Brewer, 2020) pp. 229-41
Young, H., Fantasy and Science Fiction Medievalisms: From Isaac Asimov to A Game of Thrones, (Cambria: Amherst NY 2015)
Poslední úprava: Balíková Zdeňka, Mgr. (19.06.2024)
Recommended Reading
Campbell, A. Old English Grammar, (Oxford, OUP, 1983)
Doyle, C., ‘Dweorg in Old English: Aspects of Disease Terminology’ Quaestio Insularis 9 (2008) 99-117
Liuzza, R. M. ‘Scribes of the Mind: Editing Old English in Theory and Practice’ in The Power of Words: Anglo-Saxon Studies Presented to Donald G. Scragg on his Seventieth Birthday, ed. H. Magennis and J. Willcox Medieval European Studies 7, (Morgantown, 2006), pp. 243-77
Textual and Material Culture in Anglo-Saxon England: Thomas Northcote Toller and the Toller Memorial Lectures ed. D. Scragg (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003) - selected chapters.
Schein, S. L. ‘Our Debt to Greece and Rome: Canon, Class and Ideology’ in A Companion to Classical Receptions, ed. L. Hardwick and C. Stray (Blackwell, 2007) pp. 75-85
Toswell, M. J., ‘Genre and the Dictionary of Old English’ in Old English Lexicology and Lexicography, Essays in Honor of Antonette dePaolo Healey, ed. M. Clegg Hyer, H. Momma and S. Zacher (Cambridge: D S Brewer, 2020) pp. 229-41
Young, H., Fantasy and Science Fiction Medievalisms: From Isaac Asimov to A Game of Thrones, (Cambria: Amherst NY 2015)
Poslední úprava: Balíková Zdeňka, Mgr. (19.06.2024)
