Undoing Babel: The Tower of Babel in Anglo-Saxon Literature PDF
Preview Undoing Babel: The Tower of Babel in Anglo-Saxon Literature
UNDOING BABEL The Tower of Babel in Anglo-Saxon Literature This page intentionally left blank Undoing Babel The Tower of Babel in Anglo-Saxon Literature TRISTAN MAJOR UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London © University of Toronto Press 2018 Toronto Buffalo London www.utorontopress.com Printed in the U.S.A. ISBN 978-1-4875-0054-2 (cloth) Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetable-based inks. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Major, Tristan, author Undoing Babel : the Tower of Babel in Anglo-Saxon literature / Tristan Major. (Toronto Anglo-Saxon series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4875-0054-2 (hardcover) 1.English literature – Old English, ca. 450–1100 – History and criticism. 2.Babel, Tower of, in literature. I. Title. PR173.M35 2018 829'.09372 C2017-904464-8 This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario. Funded by the Financé par le Government gouvernement of Canada du Canada To Zoe This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments ix Genesis 10–11 xi Introduction 3 1 Early Jewish and Christian Antiquity 27 2 Latin Christian Antiquity 50 3 The Early Anglo-Saxon School at Canterbury 78 4 Bede and Alcuin 96 5 Alfred the Great and the Literature of His Reign 133 6 The Tenth and Early Eleventh Centuries 158 7 The Biblical Poems of Junius 11 209 8 Conclusion 237 Bibliography 245 Index 285 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments This book is the result of almost a decade of research and writing that first began in Pauline Thompson’s graduate class on Ælfric at the University of Toronto, and now concludes at the Library of Qatar University, where I am writing this. Over this decade, I have had the privilege of becoming indebted to numerous people and institutions for providing me with help and insight. At the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto, I owe thanks to Michael Elliot, Michael Herren, Toni Healey, David and Ian McDougall, Carol Percy, Pauline Thompson, David Townsend, and Joan Holland, who all supported and encouraged my re- search. Andy Scheil has also provided invaluable help both as and after agreeing to becoming involved in my research as an external examiner; and Andy Orchard continues to be a profound source of knowledge on so many aspects of Anglo-Saxon literature – I am deeply grateful for his en- thusiasm and attentiveness. I am also grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Canada which generously funded a two-year Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of British Columbia. During this time, I was granted the space and resources to expand my research in fruitful direc- tions. At UBC I was very fortunate to have been able to work under the mentorship of Gernot Wieland. I am truly grateful for the amount of in- sight and support he provided me, especially for his careful readings and comments on all aspects of my research. At Qatar University I have had the benefit of working with extreme- ly talented undergraduate students. I owe thanks to Sarah Maysarah Al- Alami for her help proofreading portions of a draft, and to Mashael Al-Mahmoud for reading the work in its entirety. I am also grateful to Qatar University for providing me with generous financial support for acquiring various resources necessary to bring this work to completion.
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