Anglo-Saxon Culture and the Modern Imagination

303 Pages·2010·36.428 MB·English

by  David Clark, Nicholas Perkins

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Britain’s pre-Conquest past and its culture continues to fascinate Front cover: ‘Beowulf’s Journey’,
modern writers and artists. From Henry Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon by Gavin Bone (1907–42), from his
Beowulf in Modern Verse with an
Reader to Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf, and from high modernism C
Essay and Pictures(Oxford, 1945) by
to the musclebound heroes of comic book and Hollywood, permission of Wiley-Blackwell. la
Anglo-Saxon England has been a powerful and often unexpected Bone taught at St John’s College, rk
source of inspiration, antagonism, and reflection. The essays Oxford, where his students included a
here engage with the ways in which the Anglo-Saxons and their Philip Larkin and Kingsley Amis. n
d
literature have been received, confronted, and re-envisioned Back cover: Exeter Riddle Sculpture, P
in the modern imagination. They offer fresh insights on by Michael Fairfax (2005), used e
r
established figures, such as W.H. Auden, J.R.R. Tolkien, and with permission. k
i
David Jones, and on contemporary writers such as Geoffrey n
s
Hill, Peter Reading, P.D. James, and Heaney. They explore the
(
interaction between text, image and landscape in medieval and e
d
modern books, the recasting of mythic figures such as Wayland s
)
Smith, and the metamorphosis of Beowulfinto Grendel–as a
novel and as grand opera. The early medieval emerges not
simply as a site of nostalgia or anxiety in modern revisions,
but instead provides a vital arena for creativity, pleasure, and
artistic experiment.
an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF and
EDITED BY DAVID CLARK & NICHOLAS PERKINS
668 Mt Hope Ave, Rochester NY 14620, USA
www.boydellandbrewer.com
Volume 1
Anglo-Saxon Culture and the Modern Imagination
Britain’s pre-Conquest past and its culture continue to fascinate modern writers and artists. From
Henry Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Reader to Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf, and from high modernism to the
musclebound heroes of comic book and Hollywood, Anglo-Saxon England has been a powerful and
often unexpected source of inspiration, antagonism, and reflection. The essays here engage with the
ways in which the Anglo-Saxons and their literature have been received, confronted, and re-envisioned
in the modern imagination. They offer fresh insights on established figures such as W.H. Auden, J.R.R.
Tolkien, and David Jones, and on contemporary writers such as Geoffrey Hill, Peter Reading, P.D. James,
and Seamus Heaney. They explore the interaction between text, image, and landscape in medieval and
modern books, the recasting of mythic figures such as Wayland Smith, and the metamorphosis of Beo-
wulf into Grendel — as a novel and as grand opera. The early medieval emerges not simply as a site of
nostalgia or anxiety in modern revisions, but instead provides a vital arena for creativity, pleasure, and
artistic experiment.
Anglo-Saxon Culture.indb 1 29.6.2010 15:27
ISSN 2043-8230
Series Editors
Karl Fugelso
Chris Jones
Medievalism aims to provide a forum for monographs and collections devoted to the
burgeoning and highly dynamic multi-disciplinary field of medievalism studies : that
is, work investigating the influence and appearance of ‘the medieval’ in the society
and culture of later ages. Titles within the series will investigate the post-medieval
construction and manifestations of the Middle Ages  attitudes towards, and uses and
meanings of, ‘the medieval’  in all fields of culture, from politics and international
relations, literature, history, architecture, and ceremonial ritual to film and the visual
arts. It welcomes a wide range of topics, from historiographical subjects to revivalism,
with the emphasis always firmly on what the idea of ‘the medieval’ has variously meant
and continues to mean; it is founded on the belief that scholars interested in the Middle
Ages can and should communicate their research both beyond and within the academic
community of medievalists, and on the continuing relevance and presence of ‘the medi-
eval’ in the contemporary world.
New proposals are welcomed. They may be sent directly to the editors or the pub-
lishers at the addresses given below.
Professor Karl Fugelso Dr Chris Jones
Art Department School of English
Towson University University of St Andrews
3103 Center for the Arts St Andrews
8000 York Road Fife KY16 9AL
Towson, MD 21252-0001 UK
USA
Boydell & Brewer Ltd
PO Box 9
Woodbridge
Suffolk IP12 3DF
UK
Anglo-Saxon Culture.indb 2 29.6.2010 15:27
Anglo-Saxon Culture
and the Modern Imagination
edited by
David Clark and Nicholas Perkins
D.S. Brewer
Anglo-Saxon Culture.indb 3 29.6.2010 15:27
© Contributors 2010
All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation
no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system,
published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast,
transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission of the copyright owner
First published 2010
D.S. Brewer, Cambridge
ISBN 978 1 84384 251 4
D. S. Brewer is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
and of Boydell & Brewer Inc.
668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA
website : www.boydellandbrewer.com
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for exter-
nal or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any
content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
This publication is printed on acid-free paper
Designed and typeset in Minion by
The Stingray Office, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester
Printed in Great Britain by
CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne
Anglo-Saxon Culture.indb 4 29.6.2010 15:27
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Contributors ix
Foreword xi
Bernard O’Donoghue
Acknowledgements xiii
Abbreviations xiv
Introduction 1
Nicholas Perkins and David Clark
1 From Heorot to Hollywood : Beowulf in its Third Millennium 13
Chris Jones
2 Priming the Poets : the Making of Henry Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Reader 31
Mark Atherton
3 Owed to Both Sides : W.H. Auden’s Double Debt to the Literature of 51
the North
Heather O’Donoghue
4 Writing for an Anglo-Saxon Audience in the Twentieth Century : 71
J.R.R. Tolkien’s Old English Chronicles
Maria Artamonova
5 ‘Wounded men and wounded trees’ : David Jones and the Anglo-Saxon 89
Culture Tangle
Anna Johnson
6 Basil Bunting, Briggflatts, Lindisfarne, and Anglo-Saxon Interlace 111
Clare A. Lees
7 BOOM: Seeing Beowulf in Pictures and Print 129
Siân Echard
8 Window in the Wall : Looking for Grand Opera in John Gardner’s 147
Grendel
Allen J. Frantzen
0 Front matter.indd 5 2.7.2010 10:28
vi Contents
9 Re-placing Masculinity : The DC Comics Beowulf Series and its 165
Context, 1975–6
Catherine A.M. Clarke
10 P.D. James Reads Beowulf 183
John Halbrooks
11 Ban Welondes : Wayland Smith in Popular Culture 201
Maria Sachiko Cecire
12 ‘Overlord of the M5’ : The Superlative Structure of Sovereignty in 219
Geoffrey Hill’s Mercian Hymns
Hannah J. Crawforth
13 The Absent Anglo-Saxon Past in Ted Hughes’s Elmet 237
Joshua Davies
14 Resurrecting Saxon Things : Peter Reading, ‘species decline’, and Old 255
English Poetry
Rebecca Anne Barr
Index 279
Anglo-Saxon Culture.indb 6 29.6.2010 15:27
List of Illustrations
Black-and-white Figures
5.1 David Jones, ‘Ongyrede hine’ inscription, reproduced by kind permission of 106
the David Jones Estate and the National Library of Wales.
7.1 Bronze plaque from Öland, reproduced from Oscar Montelius, The Civilisa- 133
tion of Sweden in Heathen Times, trans. F.H. Wood (London, 1888).
7.2 Gold collar from Öland, reproduced from Oscar Montelius, The Civilisation of 133
Sweden in Heathen Times, trans. F.H. Wood (London, 1888).
7.3 Vendel helmet, from Beowulf, trans.William Ellery Leonard (New York, 1923). 133
7.4 Viking readers, from Limited Editions Club reprint of Beowulf, trans. William 135
Ellery Leonard (New York, 1952).
13.1 Scout Rock, Mytholmroyd. Photograph by Fay Godwin, reproduced by kind 239
permission of Collections Picture Library Ltd.
13.2 Abel Cross, Crimsworth Dean. Photograph by Fay Godwin, reproduced by 247
kind permission of Collections Picture Library Ltd.
14.1 Peter Reading, Collected Poems 2 : p. 239, reproduced by kind permission of 262
Bloodaxe Books.
14.2 Peter Reading, Collected Poems 2 : p. 278, reproduced by kind permission of 263
Bloodaxe Books.
14.3 Peter Reading, Collected Poems 3 : facing p. 176, reproduced by kind permission 272
of Bloodaxe Books.
14.4 Peter Reading, Collected Poems 3 : facing p. 182, reproduced by kind permission 275
of Bloodaxe Books.
Colour Plates between pp. 146 and 147
i Gareth Hinds, ‘Then Beowulf’s glory’, from his Beowulf (1999), reproduced by kind
permission of the artist.
ii Gareth Hinds, Beowulf emerges from the mere, from his Beowulf (1999), reproduced
by kind permission of the artist.
iii Sheila Mackie, helmet illustration from Beowulf, adapted by Julian Glover (Gloucester,
1987), reproduced by kind permission of the artist.
vii
Anglo-Saxon Culture.indb 7 29.6.2010 15:27
viii List of Illustrations
iv Funeral of Scyld, from Grendel : Transcendence of the Great Big Bad (2006). Photograph
by Robert Millard, reproduced by kind permission of the Los Angeles Opera, with
particular thanks to Mark Lyons.
v The scop sings, from Grendel : Transcendence of the Great Big Bad (2006). Photograph
by Robert Millard, reproduced by kind permission of the Los Angeles Opera, with
particular thanks to Mark Lyons.
vi Grendel approaches Heorot, from Grendel : Transcendence of the Great Big Bad (2006).
Photograph by Robert Millard, reproduced by kind permission of the Los Angeles
Opera, with particular thanks to Mark Lyons.
Anglo-Saxon Culture.indb 8 29.6.2010 15:27
Contributors
Maria Artamonova teaches Old and Middle English at St Peter’s College, Oxford. Her
academic interests include English historical syntax, translations from Latin into Old English,
and Anglo-Saxon monastic rules. She has also published on J.R.R. Tolkien’s use of Old Ger-
manic languages in his fiction, and translated his medievalist essays into Russian.
Mark Atherton is Lecturer in English language and literature at Regent’s Park College,
Oxford University. His research interests are in Old English and medieval studies as well as in
nineteenth-century philology and applied linguistics. Publications include Hildegard of Bingen :
Selected Writings (London, 2001), Celts and Christians : New Approaches to the Religious Tradi-
tions of Britain and Ireland (Cardiff, 2002), and Teach Yourself Old English (London, 2006; new
edition 2010).
Rebecca Anne Barr is Assistant Professor in the Department of English Literature and
Linguistics, Qatar University. She works on religion, literature and the representation of mas-
culinity in the long eighteenth century, with additional interests in contemporary poetry and
prose. After finishing her Ph.D. at Cambridge University she taught at Oxford, Royal Holloway,
University of London, and Bath Spa University. She is currently researching a monograph on
male chastity.
Maria Sachiko Cecire is completing her doctoral thesis ‘The Oxford School of Children’s
Fantasy Literature : Medieval Afterlives and the Production of Culture’ in the English Faculty
at the University of Oxford. Her publications include essays in Journal of Children’s Literature
Studies, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, and Arthurian Literature. She co-founded the
Oxford Children’s Literature and Youth Culture Colloquium, and is currently co-editing the
collection Space and Place in Children’s Literature with Malini Roy. She is a 2006 American
Rhodes Scholar.
David Clark is a Lecturer in Old English at the University of Leicester. He is the author
of Between Medieval Men : Male Friendship and Desire in Early Medieval English Literature
(Oxford, 2009). He is currently working on a book on friendship in medieval literature, a col-
laborative annotated translation of The Saga of Bishop Þorlákr, and co-editing a journal issue
on Blood, Sex, and Malory.
Catherine A.M. Clarke is lecturer in English and Associate Director of the Centre for
Medieval and Early Modern Research at Swansea University. Her research centres on earlier
medieval literature and culture, with particular attention to questions of place, power and
identity and an emphasis on interdisciplinary approaches. Her publications include Literary
ix
Anglo-Saxon Culture.indb 9 29.6.2010 15:27