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IMC 2018: Sessions

Session 1208: Early English Life Cycles: Corpora and Corpses

Wednesday 4 July 2018, 14.15-15.45

Organisers:Thijs Porck, Centre for the Arts in Society, Universiteit Leiden
Harriet Soper, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, University of Cambridge
Moderator/Chair:Christina Lee, School of English, University of Nottingham
Paper 1208-aThe Deaths of Two Saintly Youths: Alfred the Ætheling and King Edward the Martyr
(Language: English)
Inna Matyushina, Department of English, University of Exeter
Index terms: Daily Life, Hagiography, Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Old English
Paper 1208-bLife Cycles in the Soul's Address to the Body
(Language: English)
Terri Sanderson, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, Downtown
Index terms: Daily Life, Language and Literature - Old English, Language and Literature - Middle English
Paper 1208-cIncorruptible Saint: The Holy Corpses of Anglo-Saxon Women
(Language: English)
Jessica Troy, Department of English Language & Literature, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Index terms: Daily Life, Hagiography, Language and Literature - Old English
Abstract

This session brings together papers that deal with the human life cycle in Early English language and literature (c. 500-1350). Paper -a presents a close lexical-semantic analysis of the Old English vocabulary for people at different stages of life and of different genders. Paper -b explores the representation of the aging process in the Worcester Soul's Address to the Body with its image of a newborn crying out in anticipation of its death. Paper -c considers several Anglo-Saxon saints whose corpses were found to be incorrupt upon post-mortem examination; a phenomenon that issued in a stage of their life after death.