Reading Old English Texts

Reading Old English Texts focuses on the critical methods being used and developed for reading and analysing writings in Old English. The collection is timely, given the explosion of interest in the theory, method, and practice of critical reading. Each chapter engages with work on Old English texts from a particular methodological stance. The authors are all experts in the field, but are also concerned to explain their method and its application to a broad undergraduate and graduate readership. The chapters include a brief historical background to the approach; a definition of the field or method under consideration; a discussion of some exemplary criticism (with a balance of prose and verse passages); an illustration of the ways in which texts are read through this approach, and some suggestions for future work.

• Focuses on the critical methods being used and developed for reading and analysing writings in Old English • Contributions from experts in the field including Lapidge, Scragg, Szarmach, Donoghue, Baker, Orchard, and O’Brien O’Keeffe • Generally accessible for both undergraduate and graduate readership

List of contributors; List of abbreviations; Note on the text; Introduction Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe; 1. The comparative approach Michael Lapidge; 2. Source study D. G. Scragg; 3. Language matters Daniel Donoghue; 4. Historicist approaches Nicholas Howe; 5. Oral tradition Andy Orchard; 6. The recovery of texts Paul E. Szarmach; 7. At a crossroads: Old English and feminist criticism Clare A. Lees; 8. Post-structuralist theories: the subject and the text Carol Braun Pasternack; 9. Old English and computing: a guided tour Peter S. Baker; Suggestions for further reading; Index.