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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Old English'

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Published: 4 June 2021
Last updated: 29 July 2024

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1

King, Anne. "Old English ABCs : on the origins and development of the Old English orthographic system, and its relationship to Old English phonology." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/19902.

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In the opening Chapter of the thesis, various possible approaches to the reconstruction of Old English phonology are considered. Of the five types of approach normally employed, it is concluded that the limitations and drawbacks involved in using orthoepic, metrical, contact and comparative evidence, mean that only the fifth approach, that which makes use of the evidence of Old English spelling itself is direct and reliable enough to be used in the reconstruction of Old English phonology. An examination and critique of traditional approaches to the interpretation of Old English spelling data, as well as traditional means of presenting findings are then offered. The notion of a 'standard' Old English is questioned, in the context both of Old English spelling and of Old English dialects. In the light of the findings of these Chapters, a new approach to the interpretation of Old English spelling is offered. This is based on (1) a taxonomy which establishes, by examining spelling usage, the principles and procedures of the spelling system and (2) the external and linguistic circumstances surrounding the origins of Anglo-Saxon literacy and the Old English spelling system. For (2), details and results of direct and indirect language contact between Pre Old English, early Old Irish and Late Latin/Early Romance are given and discussed. The influences of the latter two languages on the spelling-sound correspondences chosen and established for the eventual writing-down of Old English is then investigated by means of the reconstruction of 7th century sound and spelling systems for both. After an examination of the methodology pertaining to the genesis of a spelling system, this Latin and Old Irish 'supply' is then compared with the 'demand' of the reconstructed Pre Old English sound system. Preliminary findings are presented, followed by a corpus of the earliest Old English spelling data, together with a detailed proposal on how these might best be analysed to gain information on the relative degrees of adoption and adaptation of the Roman-letter alphabet necessary for the writing-down of Old English, the relative degrees of influence exercised by Latin and Old Irish spelling traditions on Anglo-Saxon approaches to spelling, the Old English spelling system itself and Early Old English phonology.
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2

McLennan, Alistair. "Monstrosity in Old English and Old Icelandic literature." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2010. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2287/.

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Thesis Abstract. The purpose of this thesis is to examine Old English and Old Icelandic literary examples of monstrosity from a modern theoretical perspective. I examine the processes of monstrous change by which humans can become identified as monsters, focusing on the role played by social and religious pressures. In the first chapter, I outline the aspects of monster theory and medieval thought relevant to the role of society in shaping identity, and the ways in which anti-societal behaviour is identified with monsters and with monstrous change. Chapter two deals more specifically with Old English and Old Icelandic social and religious beliefs as they relate to human and monstrous identity. I also consider the application of generic monster terms in Old English and Old Icelandic. Chapters three to six offer readings of humans and monsters in Old English and Old Icelandic literary texts in cases where a transformation from human to monster occurs or is blocked. Chapter three focuses on Grendel and Heremod in Beowulf and the ways in which extreme forms of anti-societal behaviour are associated with monsters. In chapter four I discuss the influence of religious beliefs and secular behaviour in the context of the transformation of humans into the undead in the Íslendingasögur. In chapter five I consider outlaws and the extent to which criminality can result in monstrous change. I demonstrate that only in the most extreme instances is any question of an outlaw’s humanity raised. Even then, the degree of sympathy or admiration evoked by such legendary outlaws as Grettir, Gísli and Hörðr means that though they are ambiguous in life, they may be redeemed in death. The final chapter explores the threats to human identity represented by the wilderness, with specific references to Guthlac A, Andreas and Bárðar saga and the impact of Christianity on the identity of humans and monsters. I demonstrate that analysis of the social and religious issues in Old English and Old Icelandic literary sources permits nuanced readings of monsters and monstrosity which in turn enriches understanding of the texts in their entirety.
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3

Mackenzie, Colin Peter. "Vernacular psychologies in Old Norse-Icelandic and Old English." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2014. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5290/.

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This thesis examines the vernacular psychology presented in Old Norse-Icelandic texts. It focuses on the concept 'hugr', generally rendered in English as ‘mind, soul, spirit’, and explores the conceptual relationships between emotion, cognition and the body. It argues that despite broad similarities, Old Norse-Icelandic and Old English vernacular psychology differ more than has previously been acknowledged. Furthermore, it shows that the psychology of Old Norse-Icelandic has less in common with its circumpolar neighbours than proposed by advocates of Old Norse-Icelandic shamanism. The thesis offers a fresh interpretation of Old Norse-Icelandic psychology which does not rely on cross-cultural evidence from other Germanic or circumpolar traditions. In particular, I demonstrate that emotion and cognition were not conceived of ‘hydraulically’ as was the case in Old English, and that 'hugr' was not thought to leave the body either in animal form or as a person’s breath. I show that Old Norse-Icelandic psychology differs from the Old English tradition, and argue that the Old English psychological model is a specific elaboration of the shared psychological inheritance of Germanic whose origins require further study. These differences between the two languages have implications for the study of psychological concepts in Proto-Germanic, as I argue that there are fewer semantic components which can be reliably reconstructed for the common ancestor of the North and West Germanic languages. As a whole, the thesis applies insights from cross-cultural linguistics and psychology in order to show how Old Norse-Icelandic psychological concepts differ not only from contemporary Germanic and circumpolar traditions but also from the Present Day English concepts used to describe them. The thesis comprises four chapters and conclusion. Chapter 1 introduces the field of study and presents the methodologies and sources used. It introduces the range of cross-cultural variety in psychological concepts, and places Old Norse-Icelandic 'hugr' and its Old English analogue 'mōd' in a typological perspective. Chapter 2 reviews previous approaches to early Germanic psychology and introduces the major strand of research that forms the background to this study: Lockett’s (2011) proposal that Old English vernacular psychology operated in terms of a ‘hydraulic model’, where the 'mōd' would literally boil and seethe within a person’s chest in response to strong emotions. Chapter 3 outlines the native Old Norse-Icelandic psychological model by examining indigenously produced vernacular texts. It looks first at the claims that 'hugr' could leave the body in animal form or as a person’s breath. It then describes the relationship between emotion, cognition and the body in Old Norse-Icelandic texts and contrasts this with the Old English system. Chapter 4 examines the foreign influences which could potentially account for the differences between the Old English and Old Norse-Icelandic systems. It looks first at the imported medical traditions which were known in medieval Scandinavia at the time Old Norse-Icelandic texts were being committed to writing. Next it considers the psychology of Christian tradition from the early Old Icelandic Homily Book to late-fourteenth-century devotional poetry. Finally, it examines the representation of emotion and the body in the translated Anglo-Norman and Old French texts produced at the court of Hákon Hákonarson and explores how this was transposed to native romances composed in Old Norse-Icelandic. The conclusion summarises the findings of the thesis and presents a proposal for the methodology of studying medieval psychological concepts with directions for further research.
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4

Ohkado. "Clause structure in Old English." [S.l. : Amsterdam : s.n.] ; Universiteit van Amsterdam [Host], 2005. http://dare.uva.nl/document/78186.

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5

Cavill, Paul. "Maxims in Old English poetry." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 1996. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/11063/.

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The focus of the thesis is on maxims and gnomes in Old English poetry, but the occasional occurrence of these forms of expression in Old English prose and in other Old Germanic literature is also given attention, particularly in the earlier chapters. Chapters 1 to 3 are general, investigating a wide range of material to see how and why maxims were used, then to define the forms, and distinguish them from proverbs. The conclusions of these chapters are that maxims are ‘nomic’, they organise experience in a conventional, authoritative fashion. They are also ‘proverbial’ in the sense of being recognisable and repeatable, but they do not have the fixed form of proverbs. Chapters 4 to 7 are more specific in their focus, applying techniques from formulaic theory, paroemiology and the sociology of knowledge to the material so as to better understand how maxims are used in their contexts in the poems, and to appreciate the nature and function of the Maxims collections. The conclusions reached here are that the maxims in Beowulf 183b-88 are integral to the poem, that maxims in The Battle of Maldon show how the poet manipulated the social functions of the form for his own purposes, that there is virtually no paganism in Old English maxims, and that the Maxims poems outline and illustrate an Anglo-Saxon world view. The main contribution of the thesis is that it goes beyond traditional commentary in analysing the purpose and function of maxims. It does not merely focus on individual poems, but attempts to deal with a limited aspect of the Old English oral and literary tradition. The primary aim is to understand the general procedures of the poets in using maxims and compiling compendia of them, and then to apply insights gained from theoretical approaches to the specifics of poems.
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6

Nykiel, Jerzy. "Expressing obligation in Old English." Doctoral thesis, Katowice : Uniwersytet Śląski, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12128/4949.

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Celem niniejszej monografii jest charakterystyka przymusu wyrażanego przy pomocy czasowników dostępnych w tekstach staroangielskich. Zagadnienie to naturalnie wpisuje się w rozważania na temat modalności, jej semantycznej natury i urzeczywistnienia w języku. Punktem wyjścia jest lokalizacja przymusu w teoriach modalności, wyodrębnienie czasowników będących przedmiotem badań oraz sprecyzowanie miarodajnej metody pozwalającej na porównanie przymusu charakterystycznego dla każdego z czasowników. Pojęcie PRZYMUSU, a raczej szersze pojęcie KONIECZNOŚCI, którego PRZYMUS jest integralną częścią, staje się obok MOŻLIWOŚCI, fundamentem koncepcji modalności Lyons’a (1977). Wyodrębnienie PRZYMUSU w tym i innych ujęciach modalności sprowadza się do przyjrzenia się KONIECZNOŚCI NIEEPISTEMICZNEJ, która obejmuje KONIECZNOŚĆ ZEWNĘTRZNĄ, KONIECZNOŚĆ WEWNĘTRZNĄ a także POZWOLENIE/ZAKAZ. POZWOLENIE/ZAKAZ, choć formalnie przynależą do MOŻLIWOŚCI NIEEPISTEMICZNEJ, są także w centrum mojego zainteresowania dzięki pozostaniu w logicznej zależności z KONIECZNOŚCIĄ. Stojąc na stanowisku, iż KONIECZNOŚĆ, podobnie jak inne znaczenia modalne, realizują się przede wszystkim w znaczeniu czasowników, w dalszej części pracy koncentruję się na dwóch grupach czasowników staroangielskich: pięciu czasownikach pre-modalnych i jedenastu czasownikach leksykalnych. Znacznie większy nacisk położony jest na analizę znaczeń czasowników premodalnych, które, morfologicznie zaklasyfikowane jako czasowniki przeszło-teraźniejsze, są zalążkiem systemu modalnego w późniejszym angielskim w rozumieniu Palmera (2003). Przystępując do badań znaczeń wyodrębnionych czasowników, przyjmuję następujące założenie: znaczenia modalne tworzą zbiory nieostre (zob. Coates 1983), co oznacza, iż w danym przypadku znaczenie czasownika może mieć cechy desygnujące go bliżej centrum zbioru bądź bliżej peryferii zbioru. Centrum znaczenia KONIECZNOŚCI daje się określić poprzez zbiór cech, m in. siłę nacisku wywieranego przez antagonistę (źródło nacisku) na agonistę (osobę poddaną naciskowi) (zob. Taimy 2000), stopień subiektywności znaczenia, określenie czy w danym przypadku mamy do czynienia z kontekstem performatywnym czy też nie. Stosując powyższe parametry w części badawczej, dochodzę do wniosku, że system wyrażania przymusu przy pomocy czasowników pre-modalnych dopiero się wykształca. Spośród pięciu czasowników pre-modalnych, jedynie sceal ze względna konsekwencją używany jest performatywnie, subiektywnie, wyrażając znaczną siłę nacisku wygenerowaną przez antagonistę. Podobnie jak w przypadku pozostałych czasowników pre-modalnych, przykłady użycia sceal ze znaczeniem KONIECZNOŚCI ZEWNĘTRZENEJ tworzą kontinuum rozciągające się od centrum do peryferii. Dwa czasowniki, agan i mat wykazują cechy świadczące o początkowym etapie funkcjonowania ze znaczeniem KONIECZNOŚCI ZEWNĘTRZENEJ. sporadycznie pojawiają się w kontekstach performatywnych i w zależności od konkretnego przypadku, wykazują znaczne wahania pomiędzy słabszą a mocniejszą siłą nacisku. Podstawową różnicą w użyciu czasowników pre-modalnych i leksykalnych jest większa precyzja KONIECZNOŚCI czasowników leksykalnych, które również częściej wyrażają KONIECZNOŚĆ narzuconą przez zindywidualizowanego raczej niż zinstytucjonalizowanego antagonistę. Część badawcza niniejszej pracy opiera się na badaniu tekstów staroangielskich zebranych w korpusach elektronicznych. Wykorzystane zostały dwa różne korpusy tekstów: The Old English Part of the Helsinki Corpus i The Dictionary of Old English Corpus.
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7

Birkett, Thomas Eric. "Ráð Rétt Rúnar : reading the runes in Old English and Old Norse poetry." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2011. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:e7ea1359-fedc-43a5-848b-7842a943ce96.

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Responding to the common plea in medieval inscriptions to ráð rétt rúnar, to ‘interpret the runes correctly’, this thesis provides a series of contextual readings of the runic topos in Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse poetry. The first chapter looks at the use of runes in the Old English riddles, examining the connections between material riddles and certain strategies used in the Exeter Book, and suggesting that runes were associated with a self-referential and engaged form of reading. Chapter 2 seeks a rationale for the use of runic abbreviations in Old English manuscripts, and proposes a poetic association with unlocking and revealing, as represented in Bede’s story of Imma. Chapter 3 considers the use of runes for their ornamental value, using 'Solomon and Saturn I' and the rune poems as examples of texts which foreground the visual and material dimension of writing, whilst Chapter 4 compares the depiction of runes in the heroic poems of the Poetic Edda with epigraphical evidence from the Migration Age, seeking to dispel the idea that they reflect historical practice. The final chapter looks at the construction of a mythology of writing in the Edda, exploring the ways in which myth reflects the social impacts of literacy. Taken together these approaches highlight the importance of reading the runes in poetry as literary constructs, the script often functioning as a form of metawriting, used to explore the parameters of literacy, and to draw attention to the process of writing itself.
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8

Sinar, Rebecca. "A history of English reflexives : from Old English into Early Modern English." Thesis, University of York, 2006. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/11018/.

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9

Styles, Tania. "Old English semantics : problems of evidence." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.285515.

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10

Mines, Rachel. "Kuhn's laws and Old English metre." Thesis, King's College London (University of London), 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.392199.

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11

Izdebska, Daria Wiktoria. "Semantics of ANGER in Old English." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2015. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/6227/.

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This thesis examines representations of ANGER in Old English by analysing occurrences of eight word families (YRRE, GRAM, BELGAN, WRĀÞ, HĀTHEORT, TORN, WĒAMŌD and WŌD) in prose and poetry. Through inspection of 1800 tokens across c. 400 texts, it determines the understanding of how ANGER vocabulary operates in the Old English lexicon and within the broader socio-cultural context of the period. It also helps refine the interpretations of wide-ranging issues such as authorial preference, translation practices, genre, and interpretation of literary texts. The thesis contributes to diachronic lexical semantics and the history of emotions by developing a replicable methodology that triangulates data from different sources. Chapter 1 introduces the field of study and shows the approaches to emotions as either universal or culturally-determined. It discusses previous analyses of ANGER in Old English and proposes a cross-linguistic, semasiological approach, which minimises ethnocentric bias. Categorisations and conceptualisations are not identical between languages, and Old English divides the emotional spectrum differently from Present-Day English. Chapter 2 presents the methodology, which draws on approaches from historical semantics and corpus linguistics, integrating methods from cognitive linguistics, anthropology and textual studies. Chapters 3 to 10 investigate each of the eight word families, analysing all occurrences in relation to grammatical category, collocations, range of meanings, and referents. Cognates in Germanic and other Indo-European languages, and Middle English and Early Modern English reflexes are examined to trace diachronic development. The thesis determines recurrent patterns of usage, distribution between text types, and socio-cultural significance. Specific passages from Old English from a range of genres are analysed and discussed. Each family is found to have a distinct profile of usage and distribution. Chapter 11 examines ANGER in the Old English translation of Gregory’s Regula pastoralis. This text exhibits usage not found in later prose or in poetry. The Cura pastoralis also presents a different framework for understanding and conceptualising ANGER to the one found in Latin. Finally, Chapter 12 synthesises my findings and considers them comparatively. These word families differ in usage, conceptual links, referents, and even authorial preferences. Most common portrayals of ANGER in Old English involve one of the three themes: ANGER AS VICE, WRATH OF GOD and ANGER AS HOSTILITY. The thesis demonstrates that a detailed analysis of lexical usage is essential for understanding larger conceptual structures within a language, and that this in turn aids the analysis of literary texts and understanding of Anglo-Saxon psychologies.
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12

Wolfe, Catherine Ann. "The audience of Old English literature." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1994. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/270452.

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13

Brown, Raymond David. "Apo koinou in Old English poetry /." The Ohio State University, 1990. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1487684245465626.

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14

Momma, H. "The composition of Old English poetry /." Cambridge [GB] : Cambridge university press, 1997. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb366995688.

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15

Larrington, Carolyne. "Old Icelandic and Old English wisdom poetry : gnomic themes and styles." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1988. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.304642.

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Clark, David. "Vengeance and the heroic ideal in Old English and Old Norse literature." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.401257.

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17

Smith, Andrea Beth. "Old English words for Old Testament law : the evidence of the anonymous parts of the Old English Hexateuch and other literal translations of Latin." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1987. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.252651.

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Kitch, Sandra. "A comprehensive analysis of Old English breaking." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp01/MQ38538.pdf.

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Lynch, Clare. "Enigmatic diction in the Old English Exodus." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.426467.

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Wyly, Bryan Weston. "Figurative diction in the Old English `Exodus'." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.627284.

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Kleinman, Scott. "Vowel loss in Old English and Germanic." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.627105.

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Steen, Janie. "Latin rhetoric and Old English poetic style." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.406996.

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Pasicki, Adam. "Temporal adverbials in old and middle English /." Lublin : RW KUL, 1987. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb357128543.

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24

Garrasi, Daria <1991&gt. "Feminine agency in two Old English elegies." Master's Degree Thesis, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10579/11682.

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La presente tesi mira a investigare i modi in cui il concetto di “female agency” viene espresso all’interno della ristretta produzione poetica in inglese antico riguardante la figura femminile. Partendo dalla descrizione di come la cornice socio-politica nonché culturale dell’Inghilterra nell’era Anglo-Sassone concepiva l’idea di “female performativity”, andremo a vedere in che modo le donne erano allo stesso tempi assenti (data la loro invisibilità narrativa) e presenti (grazie alle loro voci). L’identità di genere di queste poesie dipende anche da alcuni indizi linguistici, dal momento che elementi sia morfologici che semantici sono stati spesso chiamati in causa nelle analisi dei testi con l’obbiettivo di individuare un possibile linguaggio femminile contrapposto a quello maschile. Le parole di queste anonime donne risuonano in particolar modo nelle due notoriamente ambigue elegie contenute all’interno dell’Exeter Book, manoscritto che doveva presumibilmente rappresentare un manuale di linee guida per le figure più emarginate nella società Anglo-Sassone (e le donne erano sicuramente considerate tali all’epoca). The Wife’s Lament e Wulf and Eadwacer sono state quindi da lungo tempo oggetto dei più disparati dibattiti accademici, specialmente riguardo il loro vago contesto e la questione del punto di vista narrativo. Essendo dunque una straordinaria e rara testimonianza di due voci femminili in un mondo incentrato sull’importanza delle gesta eroiche, vedremo come queste poesie furono oggetto delle più svariate interpretazioni, e in che modo l’idea di “female agency” è stata articolata attraverso di esse, suggerendo un modello di comportamento ritenuto socialmente accettabile per le donne in epoca Anglo-Sassone.
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Sinigaglia, Edoardo <1996&gt. ""Old English Boethius" - a scholar digital edition." Master's Degree Thesis, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/10579/18407.

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Klein, Thomas Peter. "The coarser senses in Old English, a study of the Old English verbs of tasting, smelling, touching, and perceiving." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape11/PQDD_0011/NQ41449.pdf.

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Fishwick, Stephanie Joanne. "The representation of boundaries and borderlands in old English and old Norse literature." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.543683.

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Missuno, Filip. "'Shadow' and paradoxes of darkness in Old English and Old Norse poetic language." Thesis, University of York, 2012. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/3158/.

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This thesis confronts, explores, and attempts to meaningfully interpret a surprising nexus of stimulating cruces and paradoxes in Old English poetry and prose and Old Norse skaldic and Eddic poetry. The study focuses on the complex linguistic and literary manifestations of darkness, a complex and long-underestimated phenomenon for which the most appropriate term is ‘shadow’. Rather than operating with modern categories and traditional dichotomies (light/darkness), I attempt to approach the evidence on its own terms, working from the words, their collocations, and narrow contexts up to larger literary assessments. Furthermore, the comparative Old English/Old Norse approach can provide both contextualisation for the findings and control over what we can and cannot infer from them. Reflecting these methodologies (presented in Chapter 1), the core part of the thesis (Chapters 2-5) unfolds from semantics and style to texts and literary traditions, alternating at both stages between Old English and Old Norse. Chapters 2-3 provide an in-depth examination of the formal and stylistic features and the immediate textual environments of ‘shadow’, enabling the reconstruction of semantic values and associations. In Chapters 4-5, I conduct close readings of the most relevant and revealing Old English and Old Norse texts. My case studies are further contextualised by enlarging the focus of enquiry and correlating the deployment of ‘shadow’ with questions of manuscript context, medium (prose/verse), form (skaldic/Eddic), genre (mythological/heroic/religious), and wider literary-historical links. Chapter 6 brings together the evidence for the existence, nature, and function of a ‘shadow’ theme, or themes, in Old English and Old Norse poetic language. Evaluating the significance of the parallels between the two traditions as well as within them, I recontextualise ‘shadow’ in relation to chronology, history, inheritance, contact and influence, and society and culture. The findings also afford new perspectives that can reshape our understanding of the underlying poetics.
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Harris, Ruth L. "The meanings of Waste in Old and Middle English /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 1989. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/9338.

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Sundmalm, Sara Maria. "The Syntactic Origin of Old English Sentence Adverbials." Thesis, Stockholm University, Department of English, 2009. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-42888.

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Languages rely on grammatical rules, by which even such variable constituents as adverbials are affected. However, due to the many different positions in Old English sentences taken up by adverbials, it is easy to wrongfully assume that there is an absence of grammatical rules regarding adverbials in Old English. Hence, it may be possible to detect patterns of behaviour among Old English adverbs if their different position and movement within various clauses is studied systematically. This paper has been focused on examining two conjunct adverbs, and two disjunct adverbs, functioning as sentence adverbials in prose, in order to contribute information of where they are base-generated within the syntactic structure of Old English clauses, and thus hopefully contribute to a better understanding of the grammatical system of Old English. 120 sentences of prose containing sentence adverbials have been examined according to the Government and Binding Theory, as introduced in Stæfcræft: An Introduction to Old English Syntax, in order to establish where the different textual constituents of Old English are base-generated.

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Hyer, Maren Clegg. "Textiles and textile imagery in Old English literature." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape11/PQDD_0013/NQ41444.pdf.

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32

Gameson, Fiona. "Anxiety, fear and misery in Old English verse." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1993. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.358500.

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33

Teele, Elinor Bartlet. "The heroic tradition in the Old English Riddles." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2005. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.614765.

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34

Brigatti, Federico. "The Old English Judith : sources, analysis and context." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.340760.

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35

Monteverde, Margaret Pyne. "The patterning of history in Old English literature." The Ohio State University, 1988. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1241188005.

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Biggam, Carole Patricia. "Blue in Old English : an interdisciplinary semantic study /." Amsterdam : Rodopi, 1997. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb376325763.

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Wyly, Bryan Weston. "Figures of authority in the Old English 'Exodus' /." Heidelberg : C. Winter, 1999. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb390212851.

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38

Waller, Benjamin. "Metaphorical Space and Enclosure in Old English Poetry." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/17893.

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While the political and social spaces of Old English literature are fairly well understood, this project examines the conceptual spaces in Old English poetry. The Anglo-Saxons possessed a richly metaphorical understanding of the world, not merely in the sense of artistically ornamental metaphor, but in Lakoff and Johnson's sense of conceptual metaphor, which reflects the structures of thought through which a culture understands their world. Three domains exhibit developed systems of conceptual metaphor for the Anglo-Saxons: the self, death, and the world. First, the Anglo-Saxon self is composed of four distinct entities--body, mind, soul, and a life-force--which each behave independently as they compete for control in poems like The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and Soul and Body. Second, death for the Anglo-Saxon is expressed through a number of metaphors involving the status or placement of the body: removal to a distant place; separation of the body and the soul; location down on or within the earth; and the loss of life as a possession. Predominance of a particular metaphor contributes to the effects of individual poems, from The Fates of the Apostles and Beowulf to The Battle of Maldon and The Wife's Lament. Third, the Anglo-Saxon world is a large structure like a building, with its three primary components--heaven, hell, and earth--each themselves presented as building-like structures. Old English poetry, including native versions of Genesis, reveal heaven to be a protective Anglo-Saxon hall, while hell is a cold prison. The earth, in poems like Christ II and Guthlac B, is either a wide plain or a comforting house. Christ I connects these worlds through gates, including Mary, characterized as a wall-door. Finally, the apocalyptic Christ III employs metaphorical spaces for all three conceptual domains treated in this study but dramatizes their breakdown even as it reveals spatial enclosure the overarching structure of metaphorical concepts in Old English poetry.
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Watson, Katherine. "The genius and construction of our Saxon poetry: old and middle English verse." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2010. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/29224.

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Today, 'Anglo-Saxon origins, even in the educated or culturally Iiterate mind, remain a blank: nothing happened before 1066' 1. T. A. Shippey makes the point that the Anglo-Saxon world 'has no presence at all in modern life' ,2 particularly in contrast to the powerful presence of both the Viking World and the Arthurian one.3 England failed to retain or develop a flag, anthem, national symbology, etc., even in an era of violent European nationalism'.4 Why did England fail to develop an origin myth? Shippey suggests that England 'forfeited' its national identity in the nineteenth century, when 'the developing and potentially powerful image of Anglo-Saxon origins was sacrificed', and 'Englishness became an unwelcome political stance within the ''three kingdoms" of Britain and Ireland, as tending to exclude the non-English among Queen Victoria's subjects'; while 'the "invention" of Scottish, Welsh and lrish tradition was encouraged as compensation for progressive loss of independence and erosion of the Celtic anguages' .5 Walter Scott and many others 'created an image of co-operative British history which played a major part in reconciling contemporary Britons to British politics and the English language' .6 My aim is to examine this phenomenon in relation to England's literature, specifically its poetry. The forfeiture of Anglo-Saxon origins is apparent in the history of English poetry today, but the genesis of this history is located not in the nineteenth century, but in the eighteenth, in Thomas Warton's History of English Poetry. The present work examines the mechanisms which led to the omission of Old English poetry from Warton's History, and how this omission has affected the way we think about the origins of English poetry today. Specifically, it is still widely held that English poetry began with Chaucer, and that there was a gap in poetry produced in England, between the 'Saxon' poetry produced by the Anglo-Saxons before the Norman Conquest, and the 'English' poetry which emerged - transformed by French prosody- two centuries or so after the Conquest. For this reason, the particular focus of the present work will be on poetry produced during the late Anglo-Saxon and Early Middle English periods, and how the prosody of that poetry has been theorised, both in the early nineteenth century, when it was first noticed, and today. As David Matthews has explained, the idea of Middle English was not invented until the 1870s, and 'even when scholars began agreeing' that there was a middle between Saxon and English, 'they did not agree on where exactly it occurred'. In these 'conditions of uncertainty', he argues, 'different ideologies could stake different claims' .7 Although Matthews refers to the question of where the English language began, the same conditions of uncertainty applied to literature, and the question of where English poetry began has still not been resolved unanimously today. This 'diversity' of texts is still troubling to theorists today. For instance, it is still widely held that the Anglo-Saxons did not use rhyme. (This issue is a major focus of Part 3.) The thesis of this work is that Old English verse did not die: there is no discontinuity of verse forms occurring at the time of the Norman Conquest. The dissertation presents a substantial reconsideration of a classic controversy, providing fresh perspective, in a context of reception histories relating to national and cultural identity, and with particular focus on developing ideas about prosody in medieval English verse. It presents Old and Middle English verse texts in a new way, collecting in appendices a comprehensive set of verse pieces from both periods which combine the use of alliteration and rhyme. The approach taken focuses on the reception of early English verse and offers an analytical account of critical opinion across three centuries, tracking primary material and providing historical analysis of how critical views developed and influenced each other over a long period. There is an examination of the commonly held view that there is a break in the tradition of English poetry at the end of the Old English period and that when English poetry resumes, after a gap of a couple of centuries, its poetic forms are derived from French rather than earlier English models. In particular Old English poetry has been seen as based solely on alliteration and Middle English poetry on rhyme. An obvious problem with this view is the existence of a substantial body of alliterative poetry in the later Middle English period which has obvious similarities to Old English alliterative poetry. The processes by which the notion of a discontinuity between Old and Middle English poetry developed are explained, in particular how a tendency to ignore rhyme in Old English and explain away alliteration in Middle English has contributed to the development of this notion. Part 1 traces the beginnings of commentary about Old English verse in the eighteenth century, when the understanding of Old English verse was uncertain and it was generally taken to be Danish in character, amounting to a refusal to regard it as English at all. The most influential text of the period, Warton's History of English Poetry, set the beginnings of English poetry at the Conquest. Part 2 focuses on the growing understanding of Old English and Middle English verse in the early nineteenth century, characterised particularly by conflict between the scholars involved, and argues that the work of the influential antiquarian Thomas Wright recapitulated and fostered the old eighteenth-century position. However, the main work of the dissertation is carried out in Part 3, which presents criticisms of the persistence in the twentieth century of the model of discontinuity and the idea of the 'death' of English verse at the hands of the Normans. It is shown that rhyme was present in Old English poetry and that the alliterative poetry of the Middle English period follows from an Old English tradition; and a case is made that Lawman should not be seen as a man who had lost the secret of Old English verse. lt is further demonstrated that even the key figure, J.P. Oakden, who began by assuming the death of alliterative verse, had to acknowledge ultimately that native English alliterative fom1s did not die. Since it is the thesis of this dissertation that there is no significant boundary between Old and Middle English verse, the terms 'Old English' and 'Middle English' become problematic. In general I have used the term 'Old English' as it is generally used, to refer to the body of vernacular verse produced in England prior to the Norman Conquest, but the terms 'Saxon' and' Anglo-Saxon' sometimes refer to verse produced up until the thirteenth century.
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40

Rozga, Michele E. "The Old Biology Book." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2011. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/english_diss/68.

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41

Wragg, Stefany J. "Vernacular literature in eighth- and ninth-century Mercia." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2017. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:32fa907f-158e-4dd6-ab1b-05c7689b6e79.

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This dissertation reads a group of Old English prose and verse texts that linguistic evidence suggests probably originated in Mercia, within the context of eighth- and ninth-century Mercian cultural and political history. This approach complements and supplements existing scholarship, offering evidence that the theory that a culture of vernacular translation and composition thrived in Mercia has fruitful explanatory powers. It articulates a theoretical narrative of the early period of Old English literature, and identifies two major trends that can be linked to the political and material culture of Mercia in the eighth and ninth centuries. The first is the proliferation of vernacular hagiography, both in prose and verse. In the first chapter, I offer an overview of Anglo-Saxon texts connected with the cult of Guthlac, a saint closely connected to the Mercian dynasty in the eighth and ninth centuries. This chapter offers an interpretation of Felix's Vita sancti Guthlaci as an iteration of Mercian identity, and highlights the way in which Guthlac A asserts and emphasizes the saint’s Mercian identity. I then propose a revival of the cult of Guthlac linked to a crisis in the Mercian succession in the ninth century, to which the possibly Cynewulfian account of Guthlac's death in Guthlac B, the Old English prose translation of Felix's life, and the entries in the Old English Martyrology, may be connected. In Chapter 2, I offer a reading of the hagiographical poetry of Cynewulf, namely Juliana and Elene, in light of the remarkably – and arguably uniquely – powerful position of women in Mercia from the reign of Offa onwards. The early cult of Juliana appears to have a Mercian bias, and the empowered female saints in Cynewulf's works may also be connected to evidence for female literacy in the Tiberius-group manuscripts, all of which originate in eighth- and ninth-century Southumbria. In Chapter 3, I read the Old English translation of Bede's Historia ecclesiastica, a major though until recently little-studied prose work, in relation to other texts with a literal style of translation and a hagiographical focus, and its apparent interest in Mercian conciliar culture. I also propose that the style of illumination of the earliest extant copies of the Old English Historia ecclesiastica may be influenced by Mercian, Tiberius style. The second major trend which the material and literary culture of Mercia manifests in this period is an early Orientalism, imitating and appropriating Eastern models as signs of power and sophistication. Sculptures such as those at Breedon-on-the-Hill, Leicestershire, in which Mary is modelled on Byzantine sculpture, or the dinar of Caliph al-Mansur (773-4), reminted as coinage for Offa, demonstrate a deep engagement with Oriental culture prevalent in Mercia during this period. Several decorative elements in the eighth- and ninth-century Tiberius group manuscripts, which have stylistic affinities and are often associated with Mercia, also have Oriental origins. This same phenomenon is traceable in the literary record. For example, Cynewulf's works engage in various ways with different regions of the Orient, including the Mediterranean, Africa, Rome, Jerusalem and India. The Old English Martyrology combines Insular and continental saints with Eastern saints. The Oriental character of two of the prose texts of BL Cotton Vitellius A. xv., The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle and The Wonders of the East, both usually considered Mercian on linguistic grounds, has been long noted. Together with its manuscript neighbours, Wonders and Beowulf, I consider the Letter's interest in the wider world, as well as its theorization of kingship, by which it might be considered a speculum regum. This thesis reads these texts in the light of various forms of evidence for Mercian literary culture, including linguistic characteristics and preexisting scholarship. In so doing, it fleshes out a theoretical narrative of vernacular literature prior to the late ninth-century Alfredian renaissance.
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42

Scot, Sky. "An Investigation Concerning the Base-Generation of Four Old English Conjunct and Disjunct Adverbials within the Structure of Old English Clauses." Thesis, Stockholm University, Stockholm University, Stockholm University, Stockholm University, 2009. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-27928.

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This paper is concerned with an investigation of four Old English adverbials with respect to where they are base-generated within the substructure of clauses which serve as examples of Old English prose. There are three structures in which base-generation of clausal constituents is deemed to occur: the CP, the IP, and the VP. Function and derivational movement are the governing factors which regulate the possibility of base-generation occurring within a particular structure. The movements undergone by clausal constituents, from their places of origin within the ‘underlying structures’ to their syntactic realization in the ‘surface structures’ of Old English clauses, are founded upon the model outlined in Johannesson (2009a) which is based on the tenets of Government and Binding theory. As there are no native speakers of Old English, the functions of these adverbials within their clausal environments are determined by their Modern English interpretations. Due to time and space constraints, four Old English adverbials were analysed within the context of one-hundred and twenty clauses which were extracted from The Dictionary of Old English Corpus (2004). Cases deemed to be ambiguous are addressed and classified separately; only one such case was encountered in the course of this study.

The results should exhibit proof that base-generation of the four Old English conjunct and disjunct adverbials investigated occurs within one of the aforementioned structures. Note that any conclusions drawn are based upon Modern English translations and that the results pertain to the genre of Old English prose.

 

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43

Beechy, Tiffany Rae. "A linguistic approach to the poetics of Old English /." view abstract or download file of text, 2007. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1421603981&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=11238&RQT=309&VName=PQD.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2007.
Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 218-225). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.
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44

White, David Lloyd. "Irish influence and the interpretation of old English spelling /." Digital version accessible at:, 2000. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/main.

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45

McCully, Christopher B. "The phonology of English rhythm and metre, with special reference to Old English." Thesis, University of Manchester, 1988. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.257298.

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46

Hong, Hyo-chang. "Discourse functions of Old English passive word order variation." Virtual Press, 2003. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1259301.

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The purpose of this study was to determine discourse and functional motivation for passive word order variation as shown in three of the major Early Old English prose texts, Orosius, Pastoral Care, and Ecclesiastical History of the English People. The main variation of Early Old English passive word orders are of three types, which this study showed to be distinct in the extent to which passive subjects represent information structure. This study further shows that, while thematicity functions as a main motivating factor for the use of passives, positional variation of passive verbal elements is also an important determinant of the degrees of information structure of passive main clause subjects.
Department of English
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47

Cooper, Andrew. "A unified account of the Old English metrical line." Doctoral thesis, Stockholms universitet, Engelska institutionen, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-148370.

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This study describes the verse design of Old English poetry in terms of modern phonological theory, developing an analysis which allows all OE verse lines to be described in terms of single metrical design. Old English poetry is typified by a single type of line of variable length, characterised by four metrical peaks. The variation evident in the lengths of OE metrical units has caused previous models to overgenerate acceptable verse forms or to develop complex typologies of dozens of acceptable forms. In this study, Metrical phonology and Optimality theory are used to highlight some aspects of the relationship between syntax, phonology and verse metrics in determining how sentences and phrases interact with the verse structure to create variation. The main part of the study is a metrical model based on the results of a corpus analysis. The corpus is centred on the OE poems Genesis and Andreas, complemented by selected shorter poems. A template of a prototypical line is described based on a verse foot which contains three vocalic moras, and which can vary between 2 and 4 vocalic moras distributed across 1 to 4 syllables. Each standard line is shown to consist of four of these verse feet, leading to a line length which can vary between 8 and 16 vocalic moras. It is shown that the limited variation within the length of the verse foot causes the greater variation in the length of lines. The rare, longer ‘hypermetric’ line is also accounted for with a modified analysis. The study disentangles the verse foot, which is an abstract metrical structure, from the prosodic word, which is a phonological object upon which the verse foot is based, and with which it is often congruent. Separate sets of constraints are elaborated for creating prosodic words in OE, and for fitting them into verse feet and lines. The metrical model developed as a result of this analysis is supported by three smaller focused studies. The constraints for creating prosodic words are defended with reference to compounds and derivational nouns, and are supported by a smaller study focusing on the metrical realisation of non-Germanic personal names in OE verse. Names of biblical origin are often longer than the OE prosodic word can accommodate. The supporting study on non-Germanic names demonstrates how long words with no obvious internal morphology in OE are adapted first to OE prosody and then to the verse structure. The solution for the metrical realisation of these names is shown to be patterned on derivational nouns. The supporting study on compound numerals describes how phrases longer than a verse are accommodated by the verse design. It is shown that compound numerals, which consist of two or more numeral words (e.g. 777 – seofonhund and seofon and hundseofontig) are habitually rearranged within the text to meet the requirements of verse length and alliteration. A further supporting study discusses the difference between the line length constraints controlling OE verse design and those for Old Norse and Old Saxon verse. Previous studies have often conflated these three closely related traditions into a single system. It is shown that despite their common characteristics, the verse design described in this study applies to all OE verse, but not to ON or OS.
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48

Gardiner, Heather. "The portrayal of old age in English-Canadian fiction." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp02/NQ27927.pdf.

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49

Stevens, Jon. "The Old English demonstrative a synchronic and diachronic investigation /." Connect to resource, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1811/28353.

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Thesis (Honors)--Ohio State University, 2007.
Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages: contains 34 p.; also includes graphics. Includes bibliographical references (p. 32-34). Available online via Ohio State University's Knowledge Bank.
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50

Randall, Jennifer M. "Early Medieval Rhetoric: Epideictic Underpinnings in Old English Homilies." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2010. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/english_diss/61.

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Medieval rhetoric, as a field and as a subject, has largely been under-developed and under-emphasized within medieval and rhetorical studies for several reasons: the disconnect between Germanic, Anglo-Saxon society and the Greco-Roman tradition that defined rhetoric as an art; the problems associated with translating the Old and Middle English vernacular in light of rhetorical and, thereby, Greco-Latin precepts; and the complexities of the medieval period itself with the lack of surviving manuscripts, often indistinct and inconsistent political and legal structure, and widespread interspersion and interpolation of Christian doctrine. However, it was Christianity and its governance of medieval culture that preserved classical rhetoric within the medieval period through reliance upon a classic epideictic platform, which, in turn, became the foundation for early medieval rhetoric. The role of epideictic rhetoric itself is often undervalued within the rhetorical tradition because it appears too basic or less essential than the judicial or deliberative branches for in-depth study and analysis. Closer inspection of this branch reveals that epideictic rhetoric contains fundamental elements of human communication with the focus upon praise and blame and upon appropriate thought and behavior. In analyzing the medieval world’s heritage and knowledge of the Greco-Roman tradition, epideictic rhetoric’s role within the writings and lives of Greek and Roman philosophers, and the popular Christian writings of the medieval period – such as Alfred’s translation of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, Alfred’s translation of Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Care, Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies, Wulfstan’s Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, and the anonymously written Vercelli and Blickling homiles – an early medieval rhetoric begins to be revealed. This Old English rhetoric rests upon a blended epideictic structure based largely upon the encomium and vituperation formats of the ancient progymnasmata, with some additions from the chreia and commonplace exercises, to form a unique rhetoric of the soul that aimed to convert words into moral thought and action within the lives of every individual. Unlike its classical predecessors, medieval rhetoric did not argue, refute, or prove; it did not rely solely on either praise or blame; and it did not cultivate words merely for intellectual, educative, or political purposes. Instead, early medieval rhetoric placed the power of words in the hands of all humanity, inspiring every individual to greater discernment of character and reality, greater spirituality, greater morality, and greater pragmatism in daily life.
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