MEDVL 4100

Advanced Old English

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2019-2020.

Wisdom literature is the literary expression of the received ideas that define the religious, cultural, and political ideals of a community. It is rich, interesting, and sometimes very strange. It is also one of the best attested genres preserved in Old English.We will read some poems that are explicitly sapiential, such as the Exeter Maxims which gather gnomic statements, proverbs and "sentential statements." Others, such as The Wanderer and The Seafarer, are poems of lament and reflection, but include extensive wisdom passages.In addition to wisdom poetry as such, there is an extensive corpus of vernacular riddles in Old English and riddling poetry is closely related to wisdom poetry. In Proverbs 1:6 wisdom texts are described as the riddles of the wise. And finally, the corpus of Old  English law. which is the only surviving corpus of early Germanic law in the vernacular, preserves a great deal of wisdom literature as well as more explicitly "legal" texts. Previous knowledge of Old English is not required. The class counts toward the pre-1800 requirement for English majors.

When Offered Spring.

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