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IMC 2010: Sessions

Session 325: Space-Cræft: The Places and Spaces of Old English Poetics

Monday 12 July 2010, 16.30-18.00

Moderator/Chair:Alaric Hall, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki
Paper 325-aAmbivalent Poetics in Anglo-Saxon Dream Poems
(Language: English)
Jerry Denno, Department of English, Nazareth College, Rochester
Index terms: Language and Literature - Old English, Literacy and Orality
Paper 325-bExploring the Sacral Space in Old English Epic Poetry
(Language: English)
Anastasia Slukhai, National Taras Shevchenko University, Kyiv
Index terms: Language and Literature - Old English, Mentalities
Paper 325-cPoetic Craftsmanship in the Poetry of Cynewulf: Re-Examining the Autobiographical Epilogue of Elene
(Language: English)
Diane Alff, St John's College, University of Oxford
Index terms: Archaeology - Artefacts, Language and Literature - Old English, Technology
Abstract

Paper -a:
Accepting Seth Lerer's assertion of 'the fundamentally self-referential quality of many Anglo-Saxon works', I read that same self-referentiality in Anglo-Saxon poetic passages concerned with poetic genesis, specifically through appropriations of the dream vision trope of poetic creation, and thus discover, through a series of prominent oppositions (including absence and presence, voice and voicelessness, bondage and liberation, mundane and divine), a cultural concept of poetic genesis preoccupied with what Steven Kruger calls the doubleness and middleness of dream in the medieval imagination which, taken together, reveal a both a cultural understanding of and a deep ambivalence toward poetry and poetics

Paper -b:
Old English epic poetry, action, and movement both on the literal and on the symbolic plane center around the image of the mead-hall and the journeys, both symbolic and real, that lead towards it or away from it. The axis mundi, its symbolic antonyms and the adjacent spatial elements together form the mythopoetical, or sacral, space of the Anglo-Saxon epic literature. This paper deals with the semantic and symbolic values ascribed to sacral spatial elements in various texts, their variation across genres of epic poetry, and draws conclusions on the Weltbild of the Anglo-Saxon times as reflected in its sacral language and spatial symbolism.

Paper -c:
My paper looks at the autobiographical epilogue of Elene in order to analyse the Cynewulfian notion of 'cræft', and its relationship to the poet's perception of his poetic creation. To this effect, I will probe the poem's use of a technical register of craftsmanship, and show its leanings towards the material arts, not just in its theme, but also in the self-reflexive account of its own genesis. By contrasting this account against other statements about poetics found in the records of Anglo-Saxon England and the medieval north, I will throw light on Cynewulf's very peculiar use of a notion of poetic craftsmanship.