E-Book Overview
"Seasons for Fasting", a late Old English poem probably composed in the early eleventh century, focuses on proper fasting observances in England. This poem, composed in eight-line stanzas, survives only in a sixteenth-century transcript made by the antiquary Laurence Nowell. With its topics, vocabulary, sources, and style derived from those of contemporary ecclesiastical prose, it belongs to a school of late tenth/early eleventh century poetry that only now is coming to be recognized and defined.
"The Old English Poem 'Seasons for Fasting': A Critical Edition" provides a new text and translation of the poem, accompanied by an extensive introduction, commentary, and glossary. The introduction includes analyses of the poem's manuscript origins, sources, language, meter, style, and structure. The text is collated with all previous editions. The commentary elucidates points of grammar and style, and justifies all editorial decisions. The glossary covers every instance of each word in the poem.
Since its discovery among the papers of Laurence Nowell in 1934, the poem has had only four editions, two of the text with basic notes, and two in doctoral theses with more commentary and analysis. This new edition brings the latest resources on manuscript study, lexicon (through the "Concordance and Dictionary of Old English A-G"), poetics, and cultural milieu to bear on this fascinating poem. The apparatus, including the glossary, will allow fellow scholars to extend these findings through links to their own work.
E-Book Content
The Old English Poem Seasons for Fasting A Critical Edition
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The Old English Poem Seasons for Fasting A Critical Edition
Edited by
Mary P. Richards with the assistance of
Chadwick B. Hilton, Jr.
west virginia university press morgantown 2014
Copyright 2014 West Virginia University Press All rights reserved First edition published 2014 by West Virginia University Press 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14
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PB: 978-1-938228-43-8 PDF: 978-1-938228-44-5 EPUB: 978-1-938228-45-2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Richards, Mary P. The Old English poem Seasons for fasting : a critic