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IMC 2010: Sessions

Session 1219: Journeys in Old English: Through Lines, Lives, and Landscapes

Wednesday 14 July 2010, 14.15-15.45

Sponsor:Centre for the Study of the Middle Ages, University of Birmingham
Organiser:Philippa J. Semper, Department of English, University of Birmingham
Moderator/Chair:Duncan Probert, English Place-Name Society, University of Nottingham
Paper 1219-aTravelling beyond the Boundaries in Old English Poetry
(Language: English)
Mary Ward, Hilton Shepherd Postgraduate Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Birmingham
Index terms: Language and Literature - Old English, Literacy and Orality
Paper 1219-bTime to Go: Death and Dying in the Old English Fortunes of Men
(Language: English)
Katie Long, Institut für Anglistik, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
Index terms: Language and Literature - Old English, Mentalities
Paper 1219-cTravel by Anglo-Saxon Manuscript, and Other Ways of Seeing the World
(Language: English)
Philippa J. Semper, Department of English, University of Birmingham
Index terms: Language and Literature - Old English, Manuscripts and Palaeography
Abstract

This session will explore Old English texts in relation to various different kinds of travel, considering how the texts represent journeying forward in combination with an awareness of the limits and confines of both physical and metaphysical spaces. The papers will explore the relative nature of boundaries to the movements of protagonists in the imaginary landscapes of Old English poetry, the conceptualization of death as a journey and boundary in Anglo-Saxon wisdom literature, and the ways in which readers travel beyond their own boundaries through the universe by means of words and images in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts.