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IMC 2017: Sessions

Session 601: The 'Other' Manuscript, II: The Poetry and Place(s) of Bodleian Library MS Junius 11

Tuesday 4 July 2017, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:English Department, United States Naval Academy, Maryland
Organiser:Jill Fitzgerald, Department of English, United States Naval Academy, Maryland
Moderator/Chair:Jill Fitzgerald, Department of English, United States Naval Academy, Maryland
Paper 601-aIllustrating MS Junius 11: The Case for a Pre-Existing Condition
(Language: English)
Herbert R. Broderick, Department of Art, Lehman College, City University of New York
Index terms: Art History - General, Language and Literature - Old English, Manuscripts and Palaeography
Paper 601-bA 'Womb-Shaped' Sketch of Noah's Ark on Page 70 of MS Junius 11
(Language: English)
Alessandra Molinari, Dipartimento di Scienze della Comunicazione, Studi Umanistici e Internazionali (DISCUI), Università degli Studi di Urbino Carlo Bo
Index terms: Art History - General, Language and Literature - Old English, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Theology
Paper 601-cWinchester Revisited
(Language: English)
David F. Johnson, Department of English, Florida State University
Index terms: Language and Literature - Old English, Manuscripts and Palaeography
Abstract

Following on from the previous session, this panel will be concerned with not only the function and form of the poetry found within Junius 11, but with how that poetry represents space and place. What are the cumulative effects of the manuscript's various descriptions of heaven and hell? How do the landscapes and cities found in Junius 11 ask to be read within the context of the manuscript as a whole, or in relation to its materiality, iconography, and missing spaces where illustrations might have been? From Eden to Sodom and Gomorrah; from desert wastelands to the Red Sea; from Chaldea to Babylon - the geography of Junius 11 is no mere backdrop or canvas against which its dramas and tragedies play out. These places become extensions of the emotional, psychological, and spiritual states of the manuscript's figures, peoples, and cultures. In what cultural context could these places have had meaning? Is there more to be said about the 'place' of Junius 11 itself in relation to this - about where it may have been compiled or had its provenance? And, finally, why might Junius 11 be so absent from university courses on medieval literature or Old English - what is its place now, in the medieval classroom?