The Battle of Maldon

A New Critical Edition

Mark Griffith (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

328 Seiten

2024
Liverpool University Press (Verlag)
978-1-83553-806-7 (ISBN)

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The battle of Maldon in 991 AD was a defeat. The Old English poem about it that survives, The Battle of Maldon, celebrates the extreme valour of Byrhtnoth, the leader of the defeated Anglo-Saxons, and commemorates the heroic deaths of his followers who stand by him and who stay to the end against a horde of piratical Vikings. Though lacking both beginning and end, enough survives of the main narrative of the battle to show the poet’s skill and power in conveying his message that loyalty to one’s word and to one’s lord matters more than life. Maldon is the only substantial late Old English heroic poem to survive and provides unique testimony to the poetics of its period: close re-analysis of it shows it to be a striking mix of old and new, combining features found in much earlier verse with others only otherwise attested in Middle English alliterative poetry. This new critical edition responds to the enormous range of critical views that the poem has excited: the introduction is, accordingly, substantial, and includes sections on language, prosody, style, and narrative, as well as a new and full consideration of the reliability of the sole surviving transcript. There is a detailed literary commentary and a full glossary.

Mark Griffith is Fellow and Tutor in English Language and Literature, New College, Oxford. His previous publications include Judith (Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies, 2001).

Introduction 1. Text and Origins 2. Language 3. Prosody 4. Style 5. Battle Narrative

The Text

Commentary

Appendix: Analogues

Bibliography

Glossary

Erscheinungsdatum	13.06.2024
Reihe/Serie	Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies
Verlagsort	Liverpool
Sprache	englisch
Maße	163 x 239 mm
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Mittelalter
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
ISBN-10	1-83553-806-1 / 1835538061
ISBN-13	978-1-83553-806-7 / 9781835538067
Zustand	Neuware