An exploration across thirteen essays by critics, translators and creative writers on the modern-day afterlives of Old English, delving into how it has been transplanted and recreated in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Old English language and literary style have long been a source of artistic inspiration and fascination, providing modern writers and scholars with the opportunity not only to explore the past but, in doing so, to find new perspectives on the present. This volume brings together thirteen essays on the modern-day afterlives of Old English, exploring how it has been transplanted and recreated in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by translators, novelists, poets and teachers. These afterlives include the composition of neo-Old English, the evocation in a modern literary context of elements of early medieval English language and style, the fictional depiction of Old English-speaking worlds and world views, and the adaptation and recontextualisation of works of early medieval English literature. The sources covered include W. H. Auden, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Seamus Heaney, alongside more recent writers such as Christopher Patton, Hamish Clayton and Paul Kingsnorth, as well as other media, from museum displays to television. The volume also features the first-hand perspectives of those who are authors and translators themselves in the field of Old English medievalism.

About the Author
Rachel A. Fletcher holds a Ph.D. in English Language and Linguistics from the University of Glasgow. She has published on the history of Old English lexicography, Old English scholarship in the Early Modern period, and J. R. R. Tolkien's work on the Oxford English Dictionary. Thijs Porck is University Lecturer in Medieval English at Leiden University. He has published on Old English textual criticism, Beowulf, old age, medievalism, and J. R. R. Tolkien. Oliver M. Traxel is Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Stavanger. He has a Ph.D. in Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic from the University of Cambridge and habilitated in English Philology at the University of Munster. He has published widely on the representation of past language stages in the modern world. Rachel A. Fletcher holds a Ph.D. in English Language and Linguistics from the University of Glasgow. She has published on the history of Old English lexicography, Old English scholarship in the Early Modern period, and J. R. R. Tolkien's work on the Oxford English Dictionary. Oliver M. Traxel is Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Stavanger. He has a Ph.D. in Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic from the University of Cambridge and habilitated in English Philology at the University of Munster. He has published widely on the representation of past language stages in the modern world. Thijs Porck is University Lecturer in Medieval English at Leiden University. He has published on Old English textual criticism, Beowulf, old age, medievalism, and J. R. R. Tolkien. M.J. TOSWELL is a Professor at theUniversity of Western Ontario. Karen Louise Jolly is professor of medieval European history at the University of Hawai'i Manoa. Her research focuses on popular religion, marginal manuscripts, and re-imagining early medieval Britain through historical fiction.


Book Information
ISBN 9781843846505
Author Dr Rachel A. Fletcher
Format Hardback
Page Count 312
Imprint D.S. Brewer
Publisher Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Weight(grams) 1g