Borrowed objects and the art of poetry: Spolia in Old English verse

by Denis Ferhatovic, James Paz (Editor), Anke Bernau (Editor), David Matthews (Editor)

Overview

This study examines Exeter riddles, Anglo-Saxon biblical poems (Exodus, Andreas, Judith) and Beowulf in order to uncover the poetics of spolia, an imaginative use of recycled fictional artefacts to create sites of metatextual reflection. Old English poetry famously lacks an explicit ars poetica. This book argues that attention to particularly charged moments within texts especially those concerned with translation, transformation and the layering of various pasts yields a previously unrecognised means for theorising Anglo-Saxon poetic creativity. Borrowed objects and the art of poetry works at the intersections of materiality and poetics, balancing insights from thing theory and related approaches with close readings of passages from Old English texts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781526131676
Publisher:	Manchester University Press
Publication date:	03/26/2019
Series:	Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	200
File size:	472 KB

About the Author

Denis Ferhatovic is Assistant Professor of English at Connecticut College, New London

Table of Contents

Introduction: powerful fragments: ruin, relics, spolia

1 Encyclopedic miniatures: combinatory powers of loot in the Exeter Riddles

2 Architecture of the past and the future: transformative potential of plunder in Exodus

3 Animated, animating: bringing stone, flesh, and text to life in Andreas

4 Zooming out, cutting through: resistance to incorporation in Judith

5 A hoard full of plunder: paradoxical materiality of loss in Beowulf

Conclusion: resistant material remnants in Old English and beyond

Index

Editorial Reviews

'Ferhatovic ´demonstrates how productive the turn to material culture can be for understanding early medieval poetry.'
Speculum

'Ferhatovic has created a rich tapestry exploring these prominent, unsettling things as they are reflected in the poetry of a culture that knew all too well what plunder meant. His debut monograph provides a sharply argued and unconventional approach to several perplexing and important Old English works, finding a dramatically new angle from which to explore them.'
Journal of English and Germanic Philology

From the Publisher