The purpose of this course will be to focus on various aspects of Old English poetic style and diction, and to outline a set of principles and methods for reading Old English verse as literature, through a series of close readings of individual passages and poems. The course is aimed at all those of various levels and experience interested in reading Old English poetry, and will, after an initial class teaching the basic rules, encourage extensive reading of verse in the original aloud. All the texts and passages considered will be presented with parallel translations into Modern English, and will be marked up to highlight (for example) repeated formulas and particularly poetic forms, themes, and styles. Successive classes will consider ‘The Sounds, Sources, and Structures of Old English Verse’; ‘The Themes and Styles of Old English Verse’; ‘Looking Back: Nostalgia in Old English Verse’; ‘Looking Sideways: Critiquing the Contemporary in Old English Verse’; ‘Looking Forwards: the Future in Old English Verse.
Among the poems to be considered in detail are The Wanderer, The Dream of the Rood, The Battle of Maldon, several Riddles, and Beowulf. In each case, the range of current scholarly opinion with regard to the texts will be weighed and analysed, and the changing trends in contemporary scholarship examined. By the end of the course, students will have a more secure understanding of the tensions between tradition and innovation that were exhibited throughout the Anglo-Saxon period in Old English verse, and how poetics forms and techniques developed over time. Throughout the course, suggestions will be offered for the best and most sensitive way to continue to read these ancient texts most profitably and pleasurably today.
