Karin E. Olsen, Conceptualizing the Enemy in Early Northwest Europe: Metaphors of Conflict and Alterity in Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, and Early Irish Poetry. Medieval Identities: Socio-Cultural Spaces, 6. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2016, 260 pp.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 380-381
Author(s):  
William Sayers
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Irish Poetry ◽  
Northwest Europe ◽  
Cultural Spaces ◽  
The Common ◽  
Conflictual Situation

In this ambitious study Karin E. Olsen ranges far and wide in the early poetry of medieval Northwest Europe, far in the sense of incorporating the literary evidence from three adjacent but distinct cultures, wide in the sense of greatly expanding on the common notions of the enemy and conflict, often by making alterity one side of a conflictual situation. A uniform methodology seeks to encompass this sprawling investigative field, where ‘conceptual metaphor’ is a key heuristic term.

Signy's Lament

PMLA ◽  
1902 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-295
Author(s):  
William Henry Schofield
Keyword(s):  
Old Norse ◽  
Correct Identification ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Preceding Article

In the preceding article my friend Mr. Lawrence has shown clearly that all indications point to an Old Norse source for the Anglo-Saxon poem usually termed The First Riddle of Cynewulf. After he had come to a conviction on this point, he communicated his theory to me in private conference, in the hope that I might perhaps be able to supply confirmatory evidence by showing what that source was. It was my fortune to make what I believe scholars will agree to be the correct identification of the material, and, with the new light thus thrown on its meaning, to interpret the poem more satisfactorily, I think, than has hitherto been done.

The ‘dark Welsh’ as slaves and slave raiders in Exeter Book riddles 52 and 721

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindy Brady
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Early Period ◽  
Exeter Book ◽  
Regional Culture ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Social Division ◽  
Cattle Raiding ◽  
Slave Traders ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Perception

Chapter three argues that a group of Old English riddles located in the borderlands between Anglo-Saxon England and Wales reflect a common regional culture by depicting shared values of a warrior elite across the ostensible Anglo-Welsh divide. These riddles, which link the ‘dark Welsh’ to agricultural labour, have long been understood to depict the Welsh as slaves and thus reflect Anglo-Saxon awareness of both ethnic and social division. Drawing upon understudied Welsh legal material, this chapter argues that these riddles have a multilayered solution in which the Welsh are both slaves and slave traders, complicating readings of negative Anglo/Welsh relations. This polysemic solution reveals that the Welsh, like the Anglo-Saxons, were stratified by class into the enslaved and a warrior elite with less distance from the Anglo-Saxons than has been understood. The location of these riddles on the mearc further characterises the Welsh borderlands in the early period as a distinctive region which was notorious for cattle raiding. These riddles counter the common perception that the Welsh borderlands were defined by Offa’s Dyke, suggesting that this region is better understood as a space which both Anglo-Saxons and Welsh permeated on raids.

Rural Communities in Early Medieval Europe: Archaeological Approaches and Frameworks

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Hamerow
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Rural Settlements ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Melting Pot ◽  
Local Diversity ◽  
Northwest Germany ◽  
Structure Of Communities ◽  
Northwest Europe

The primary aim of this book is to provide an overview of the evidence for the settlements and everyday life of rural communities in northwest Europe from c. ad 400 to 900, broadly the period from the collapse of the western Roman Empire to the rise of early states in its former provinces and Scandinavia. Its secondary purpose is to relate this evidence, which comes mainly from archaeological excavations, to Anglo-Saxon England and to consider its implications for our understanding of settlements here. Each chapter concludes, therefore, with a brief discussion of the comparable evidence from England, even though detailed comparisons cannot always be drawn due to differences in the quantity and nature of the data available. The evidence is examined under five broad topics: buildings and what the ‘built environment’ tells us about the household and its activities; the layout of farmsteads and settlements and how these may reflect the social structure of communities; the formation of territories and demographic developments; farming strategies; and, finally, the role of non-agrarian production and exchange in the economies of rural settlements. Working with evidence spanning such a broad chronological and geographical range is naturally beset with methodological difficulties. One obvious complication is introduced by the different traditions of periodization and terminology used by scholars working in different countries. Thus, a settlement dating to the sixth century might be described as ‘Germanic Iron Age’, ‘Migration period’, ‘early Anglo-Saxon’, or ‘Merovingian’, depending on its location. The chapters which follow draw primarily on evidence from a large region, stretching from southern Scandinavia, through northwest Germany to the Netherlands. This brings with it the danger of adopting a ‘melting pot’ approach, however unintentionally (Halsall 1995a, 1–3). Yet, an appreciation of regional, indeed local, diversity and of the potential for rapid social change in this period is essential. This North Sea zone has been chosen, furthermore, not out of a misguided belief in a ‘homogeneous Germanic culture’ (ibid.), but because it was in close cultural and economic contact with England and includes the regions from which the Anglo-Saxons believed their forebears to have originated.

scholarly journals Metrical Positions and their Linguistic Realisations in Old Germanic Metres: A Typological Overview

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 9-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seiichi Suzuki
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
The Other ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Old Saxon ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Common Scale ◽  
The Common ◽  
Linguistic Alignment ◽  
The One ◽  
Linguistic Material

This paper provides a typological account of Old Germanic metre by investigating its parametric variations that largely determine the metrical identities of the Old English Beowulf, the Old Saxon Heliand, and Old Norse eddic poetry (composed in fornyrðislag, málaháttr, or ljóðaháttr). The primary parameters to be explored here are the principle of four metrical positions per verse and the differing ways in which these constituent positions are aligned to linguistic material. On the one hand, the four-position principle works with a maximal strictness in Beowulf, and to a slightly lesser extent in fornyrðislag, whereas it allows for a wider range of deviations in verse size in the Heliand and ljóðaháttr. In málaháttr, however, the principle in itself gives way to the five-position counterpart. On the other hand, the variation in the metrical– linguistic alignment in the three close cognate metres may be generalised by positing the common scale, Heliand > Beowulf > fornyrðislag, for the decreasing likelihood of resolution, the increasing likelihood of suspending resolution, and the decreasing size of the drop.

scholarly journals Francophonie et études francophones: considérations historiques et métacritiques sur quelques concepts majeurs (Francophonie and Francophone studies: historical considerations and metacritiques on a few major concepts)

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
François Provenzano
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Francophone Studies ◽  
Academic Context ◽  
French Speaking ◽  
First Occurrence ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One

The so called French-speaking world is much more than a community of speakers using the same language. Since the era of decolonization, language has become a major economical stake for France, as well as an important symbolic struggle against Anglo-Saxon linguistic and political hegemony. In the academic context also, the developments of Francophone studies demonstrate a current preoccupation with integrating francophone reality into the common encyclopaedia. This paper steps back from such contemporary debates. Analysing the historical and epistemological backgrounds from which francophone projects have been emerging since the end of the nineteenth century, the paper discusses a number of useful concepts for approaching francophone realities. I argue that the main difficulty of the theoretical work in this field is the diversity of definitions of the object, as well as the inability to separate it from ideological content. Starting with the so called first occurrence of the word ‘francophonie’, I examine the institutional, sociolinguistic, poetical and socioliterary definitions that have attempted to explain the constitutive dimensions of an abstract francophone unity. Taking a metacritical point of view, and inspired by Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological works on the one hand and discursive approaches on the other, this article hopes to present pointers for future research into the study of French-speaking zones, peoples and cultures.

The Kenning in Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse Poetry

1930 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 196
Author(s):  
H. A. C. Green ◽  
H. Van der Merwe Scholtz
Keyword(s):  
Old Norse ◽  
Anglo Saxon

Newman and the Spiritual Crisis of the Occident

1947 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 230-246
Author(s):  
Otto Karrer
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
Philosophical Thinking ◽  
Anglican Church ◽  
The Common ◽  
Religious Mind ◽  
Long Life ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Spiritual Conflicts

Newman's is perhaps the most illustrious religious mind in the modern Anglo-Saxon world. Exactly half of his long life (1801–1890) was devoted to the Anglican Church, the other half to the Catholic. However clear and unequivocal his conversion, his intellectual position is nevertheless the same in both periods. The sources of his inner life stem from the revelation of the Eternal, which came to him when he was fifteen years old and never left him his whole life long. His philosophical thinking is influenced by English empiricism that involves an attitude of restraint concerning intellectual speculation. It is in conformity with the English love of the concrete, of the individual-personal element and, with due respect to the spirit of tradition, of Christian freedom. And even though Newman's theology is rooted in ancient Christian tradition, his missionary conscience is directed towards the future, towards the spiritual conflicts of the twentieth century. Their unfolding he sensed with astonishing prevision. Just as his sermons and writings are divided almost equally between the two periods of his life (with the exception of perhaps one decade at the height of his career, in which he saw himself doomed almost to inactivity because of tragic misunderstandings), so his life's work has become the common possession of all Christendom, first, in his native land and, then, increasingly in other countries. For what Newman has to say actually concerns the whole Christian world.

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