Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England: Studies Presented to Peter Clemoes on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday

by Michael Lapidge (Editor), Helmut Gneuss (Editor)

Originally published in 1985, fourteen leading specialists in the field of Anglo-Saxon studies contributed to this substantial collection of essays in honour of Peter Clemoes, founder of Anglo-Saxon England, who had recently retired as Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon in the University of Cambridge. The book is divided into two complementary parts. The first looks at the background to Anglo-Saxon learning, in particular at the composition of monastic and private libraries and the nature of the individual works available in them. The second examines the contents and sources of individual texts and reviews the problems of interpretation and transmission these pose for scholars. Many of these essays deal with complex and difficult materials like manuscripts and liturgical sources that are fundamental to the interpretation of Old English literature and to Anglo-Saxon culture in general.

492 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 1985

About the author

Michael Lapidge, MA, PhD, LittD, FBA.

Reviews

[Alex Boyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of these essays are pretty technical, dealing with meter, manuscript variances or word studies and, while interesting, they are far from invigorating. There are two essays within this collection, however, that are a real treat to anyone interested in the Anglo Saxon world: M.R. Godden's "Anglo Saxons on the Mind", discussing the relationship of the mind with the soul in verse and prose, and Stanly B. Greenfield's "Beowulf and the Judgement of the Righteous" which, through philological analysis of Beowulf's fight with the dragon discusses the humanitas of pagain heroism in a world ruled deterministically by fate. These two essays alone make it 4 stars to me.