Research into the emotions is beginning to gain momentum in Anglo-Saxon studies. In order to integrate early medieval Britain into the wider scholarly research into the history of emotions (a major theme in other fields and a key field in interdisciplinary studies), this volume brings together established scholars, who have already made significant contributions to the study of Anglo-Saxon mental and emotional life, with younger scholars. The volume presents a tight focus - on emotion (rather than psychological life more generally), on Anglo-Saxon England and on language and literature - with contrasting approaches that will open up debate. The volume considers a range of methodologies and theoretical perspectives, examines the interplay of emotion and textuality, explores how emotion is conveyed through gesture, interrogates emotions in religious devotional literature, and considers the place of emotion in heroic culture. Each chapter asks questions about what is culturally distinctive about emotion in Anglo-Saxon England and what interpretative moves have to be made to read emotion in Old English texts, as well as considering how ideas about and representations of emotion might relate to lived experience. Taken together the essays in this collection indicate the current state of the field and preview important work to come. By exploring methodologies and materials for the study of Anglo-Saxon emotions, particularly focusing on Old English language and literature, it will both stimulate further study within the discipline and make a distinctive contribution to the wider interdisciplinary conversation about emotions.

Gale Researcher Guide for: Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Poems of Trauma, Grief, and Consolation is selected from Gale's academic platform Gale Researcher. These study guides provide peer-reviewed articles that allow students early success in finding scholarly materials and to gain the confidence and vocabulary needed to pursue deeper research.

This collection of essays examines the motifs of darkness, depression, and descent in both literal and figurative manifestations within a variety of Anglo-Saxon texts, including the Old English Consolation of Philosophy, Beowulf, Guthlac, The Junius Manuscript, The Wonders of the East, and The Battle of Maldon. Essays deal with such topics as cosmic emptiness, descent into the grave, and recurrent grief. In their analyses, the essays reveal the breadth of this imagery in Anglo-Saxon literature as it is used to describe thought and emotion, as well as the limits to knowledge and perception. The volume investigates the intersection between the burgeoning interest in trauma studies and darkness and the representation of the mind or of emotional experience within Anglo-Saxon literature.

Anglo-Saxon Keywords presents a series of entries that reveal the links between modern ideas and scholarship and the central concepts of Anglo-Saxon literature, language, and material culture. Reveals important links between central concepts of the Anglo-Saxon period and issues we think about today Reveals how material culture—the history of labor, medicine, technology, identity, masculinity, sex, food, land use—is as important as the history of ideas Offers a richly theorized approach that intersects with many disciplines inside and outside of medieval studies

An examination of how emotions were practised and performed through Old English texts.Scholarship is increasingly interested in investigating concepts of emotion found in Old English literature. This study takes the next step, arguing that both heroic and religious texts were vehicles for emotional practice - that is, for doing things with emotion. Using case studies from heroic poetry (Beowulf, The Battle of Brunanburh and The Battle of Maldon), religious poetry (Christ I and Christ III) and homilies (selections from the Vercelli Book, Blickling Homilies and the works of Wulfstan), it shows via detailed close readings that texts could be used to act out emotional styles, manage the emotions arising from specific events, and negotiate relationships both within social groups and with God. Meanwhile, a chapter on the Old English Boethius explores how the control of unruly emotions is theorized as the transfer of attachment from the things of this world to the things of the divine. Overall, the volume offers new angles on the social functions of genres and questions of reception and performance; and it gives insight into how early medieval people used emotions to relate to their world, temporal and eternal. angles on the social functions of genres and questions of reception and performance; and it gives insight into how early medieval people used emotions to relate to their world, temporal and eternal. angles on the social functions of genres and questions of reception and performance; and it gives insight into how early medieval people used emotions to relate to their world, temporal and eternal. angles on the social functions of genres and questions of reception and performance; and it gives insight into how early medieval people used emotions to relate to their world, temporal and eternal.

Reveals the rich emotional experience of teaching and learning as revealed in Anglo-Saxon literature.

Sense and Feeling in Daily Living in the Medieval English World seeks to illuminate important aspects of daily living and the experience of the environment through sense and emotion, using archaeological and textual sources. Twelve papers explore sight, sound, taste, smell, touch, and emotions such as anger, horror, grief and joy. Similar in theme and method to the first, second, and third volumes in the Material Culture of Daily Living in the Anglo-Saxon World series, the collected articles illuminate how an understanding of the sensory and emotional landscape that helped form the daily lives of the peoples and the environments of the medieval English world can inform reading and scholarship on medieval England. The sights, smells, and sounds that informed the physical and emotional landscape of town, scriptoria, and hall, for example, explain urban planning, literary imagery, and emotional attachment core to the cultures of the medieval English. Similarly, other senses and emotions are as significant to understanding the landscape of the medieval English as crafts, towns, or water structures.