Scop
A ( or ) was a poet as represented in Old English literature#Poetry, Old English poetry. The scop is the Old English counterpart of the Old Norse ', with the important difference that "skald" was applied to historical persons, and scop is used, for the most part, to designate oral poets ''within'' Old English literature. Very little is known about scops, and their historical existence is questioned by some scholars. Functions The scop, like the similar gleeman, was a reciter of poetry. The scop, however, was typically attached to a court on a relatively permanent basis. There, he most likely received rich gifts for his performances. The performances often featured the recitation of recognisable texts such as the "old pagan legends of the Germanic tribes." However, the scop's duties also included ''composing'' his own poetry in different situations, the eulogizing of his master. While some scops moved from court to court, they were (generally speaking) less nomadic than the g ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their Viking expansion, overseas settlements and chronologically coincides with the Viking Age, the Christianization of Scandinavia and the consolidation of Scandinavian kingdoms from about the 7th to the 15th centuries. The Proto-Norse language developed into Old Norse by the 8th century, and Old Norse began to develop into the modern North Germanic languages in the mid-to-late 14th century, ending the language phase known as Old Norse. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse is found well into the 15th century. Old Norse was divided into three dialects: Old West Norse, ''Old West Norse'' or ''Old West Nordic'' (often referred to as ''Old Norse''), Old East Norse, ''Old East Norse'' or ''Old East Nordic'', and ''Ol ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Grendel (novel)
''Grendel'' is a 1971 novel by the American author John Gardner. It is a retelling of part of the Old English poem ''Beowulf'' from the perspective of the antagonist, Grendel. In the novel, Grendel is portrayed as an antihero. The novel deals with finding meaning in the world, the power of literature and myth, and the nature of good and evil. In a 1973 interview, Gardner said, "In ''Grendel'' I wanted to go through the main ideas of Western civilization – which seemed to me to be about ... twelve? – and go through them in the voice of the monster, with the story already taken care of, with the various philosophical attitudes (though with Sartre in particular), and see what I could do, see if I could break out." On another occasion, he noted that he "us dGrendel to represent Sartre's philosophical position" and that "a lot of ''Grendel'' is borrowed from sections of Sartre's '' Being and Nothingness''". ''Grendel'' has become one of Gardner's best-known and best-reviewed wo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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A Minstrel Sings Of Famous Deeds By J
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English grammar, " a", and its variant " an", are indefinite articles. History The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguish it fro ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Seth Lerer
Seth Lerer (born 1955) is an American scholar who specializes in historical analyses of the English language, in addition to critical analyses of the works of several authors, particularly Geoffrey Chaucer. He is a Distinguished Professor of Literature at the University of California, San Diego, where he served as the Dean of Arts and Humanities from 2009 to 2014. He previously held the Avalon Foundation Professorship in Humanities at Stanford University. Lerer won the 2010 Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism and the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism for ''Children’s Literature: A Readers’ History from Aesop to Harry Potter''. Life and career He was born in Brooklyn, New York City, and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wesleyan University in 1976. He gained a second Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts degree from the University of Oxford in 1978. He was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree by the University of Chicago in 1981. He taugh ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bard
In Celtic cultures, a bard is a professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or chieftain) to commemorate one or more of the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities. With the decline of a living bardic tradition in the modern period, the term has loosened to mean a generic minstrel or author (especially a famous one). For example, William Shakespeare and Rabindranath Tagore are respectively known as "the Bard of Avon" (often simply "the Bard") and "the Bard of Bengal".Oxford Dictionary of English, s.v. ''bard'', n.1. In 16th-century Scotland, it turned into a derogatory term for an itinerant musician; nonetheless it was later romanticised by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832). Etymology The English term ''bard'' is a loan word from the Celtic languages: Gaulish: ''bardo-'' ('bard, poet'), mga, bard and ('bard, poet'), wlm, bardd ('singer, poet'), Middle Breton: ' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sumbel
Symbel ( OE) and sumbl ( ON) are Germanic terms for "feast, banquet". Accounts of the ''symbel'' are preserved in the Anglo-Saxon ''Beowulf'' (lines 489-675 and 1491–1500), '' Dream of the Rood'' (line 141) and '' Judith'' (line 15), Old Saxon ''Heliand'' (line 3339), and the Old Norse ''Lokasenna'' (stanza 8) as well as other Eddic and Saga texts, such as in the ''Heimskringla'' account of the funeral ale held by King Sweyn, or in the ''Fagrskinna''. Paul C. Bauschatz in 1976 suggested that the term reflects a pagan ritual which had a "great religious significance in the culture of the early Germanic people".First proposed at the Third International Conference of Nordic and General Linguistics, at the University of Texas at Austin, April 5–9, 1976 (published in 1978), elaborated in Bauschatz, "The Germanic ritual feast" and ''The Well and the Tree''; Pollington, ''Mead-hall''. Etymology The prevalent view today is that Old English ''symbel'', Old Saxon ''symbal, sumbal'' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Carol Braun Pasternack
Carol Braun Pasternack (1950 – September 2, 2020) was a professor of medieval English literature and language at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) from 1988 to 2013. She chaired the Medieval Studies department, and was also Dean of Summer Sessions at UCSB in 2011–2013. Education Pasternack received her PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1983. Research Her research interests included history of the English language, Old and Middle English literature, theories concerning oral tradition (especially the techniques of ''scops'' or oral poets) and textual transmission of early medieval texts, feminist approaches to medieval literature, and sex and gender in the early Middle Ages. Her first monograph was ''The Textuality of Old English Poetry'', published by Cambridge University Press in 1995. In ''The Textuality of Old English Poetry'', Pasternack argued for the techniques of transmission of oral and textual poetry: "In a primary oral cult ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John D
John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second Epistle of John, often shortened to 2 John * Third Epistle of John, often shortened to 3 John People * John the Baptist (died c. AD 30), regarded as a prophet and the forerunner of Jesus Christ * John the Apostle (lived c. AD 30), one of the twelve apostles of Jesus * John the Evangelist, assigned author of the Fourth Gospel, once identified with the Apostle * John of Patmos, also known as John the Divine or John the Revelator, the author of the Book of Revelation, once identified with the Apostle * John the Presbyter, a figure either identified with or distinguished from the Apostle, the Evangelist and John of Patmos Other people with the given name Religious figures * John, father of Andrew the Apostle and Saint Peter * Po ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hugh Magennis (scholar)
Hugh Magennis is a scholar of Old English and the author of several books on Anglo-Saxon society and poetry, including especially ''Beowulf''. Biography Hugh Magennis gained his bachelor's degree at Queen's University Belfast in 1970. He obtained his master's degree there in 1972 and his PhD also there in 1981. He joined the staff of the university in the 1970s, becoming a full professor, head of its School of English and director of its Institute of Theology. He served from 2004 as chair of the Teachers of Old English in Britain and Ireland, and from 2011 its honorary president. Honours and distinctions A ''festschrift'' called ''Saints and Scholars: New Perspectives on Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture in Honour of Hugh Magennis'', was published in 2012. A collection of studies in his honour, entitled "Holy and Unholy Appetites in Anglo-Saxon England" was published the same year in ''English Studies English studies (usually called simply English) is an academic di ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alliterative Verse
In meter (poetry), prosody, alliterative verse is a form of poetry, verse that uses alliteration as the principal ornamental device to help indicate the underlying Metre (poetry), metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly studied traditions of alliterative verse are those found in the oldest literature of the Germanic languages, where scholars use the term 'alliterative poetry' rather broadly to indicate a tradition which not only shares alliteration as its primary ornament but also certain metrical characteristics. The Old English language, Old English Epic poetry, epic ''Beowulf'', as well as most other Old English poetry, the Old High German ''Muspilli'', the Old Saxon ''Heliand'', the Old Norse language, Old Norse ''Poetic Edda'', and many Middle English poems such as ''Piers Plowman'', ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'', and the ''Alliterative Morte Arthur'' all use alliterative verse. While alliteration can be found in many poetic trad ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Michael J
Michael may refer to: People * Michael (given name), a given name * Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael Given name "Michael" * Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions * Michael (bishop elect), English 13th-century Bishop of Hereford elect * Michael (Khoroshy) (1885–1977), cleric of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada * Michael Donnellan (1915–1985), Irish-born London fashion designer, often referred to simply as "Michael" * Michael (footballer, born 1982), Brazilian footballer * Michael (footballer, born 1983), Brazilian footballer * Michael (footballer, born 1993), Brazilian footballer * Michael (footballer, born February 1996), Brazilian footballer * Michael (footballer, born March 1996), Brazilian footballer * Michael (footballer, born 1999), Brazilian footballer Rulers =Byzantine emperors= * Michael I Rangabe (d. 844), married the daughter of Emperor Nikephor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Beowulf
''Beowulf'' (; ang, Bēowulf ) is an Old English Epic poetry, epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 Alliterative verse, alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and List of translations of Beowulf, most often translated works of Old English literature. The date of composition is a matter of contention among scholars; the only certain dating is for the manuscript, which was produced between 975 and 1025. Scholars call the anonymous author the "''Beowulf'' poet". The story is set in pagan Scandinavia in the 6th century. Beowulf (hero), Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes (Germanic tribe), Danes, whose mead hall in Heorot has been under attack by the monster Grendel. After Beowulf slays him, Grendel's mother attacks the hall and is then defeated. Victorious, Beowulf goes home to Geatland and becomes king of the Geats. Fifty years later, Beowulf defeats a The Dragon (Beowulf), dragon, b ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |