Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England
Published on 15. April 2001
Book
Paperback/Softback
224 pages
978-0-268-03463-4 (ISBN)
Description
A revisionist interpretation of Anglo-Saxon England. Nicholas Howe proposes that the Anglo-Saxons fashioned a myth out of the 5th-century migration of their Germanic ancestors to Britain. Through the retelling of this story, the Anglo-Saxons ordered their complex history and identified their destiny as a people. Howe traces the migration myth throughout the literature of the Anglo-Saxon period, in poems, sermons, letters and histories from the sixth to the eleventh centuries.
Reviews / Votes
Howe's book is of value not only to scholars of medieval English literature but highly suitable for mythographers, cultural historians, anthropologists, and theologians. Documentation is thorough, and most footnotes are annotated; the bibliography is exhaustive. This study complements Howe's previous scholarship and assumes, by its authority and integrity of presentation, the status of a standard in contemporary scholarship relevant to Anglo-Saxon England. - Renaissance and ReformationMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Notre Dame IN
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
notes, bibliography
ISBN-13
978-0-268-03463-4 (9780268034634)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
NICHOLAS HOWE is professor of English at Ohio State University and director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. In addition to many published articles and essays, Howe is the author of The Old English Catalogue Poems (1985), editor of Irving Howe's Critic's Notebook (1995), and co-editor of Words and Works (1998).