This study examines Exeter riddles, Anglo-Saxon biblical poems (Exodus, Andreas, Judith) and Beowulf in order to uncover the poetics of spolia, an imaginative use of recycled fictional artefacts to create sites of metatextual reflection.
Old English poetry famously lacks an explicit ars poetica. This book argues that attention to particularly charged moments within texts - especially those concerned with translation, transformation and the layering of various pasts - yields a previously unrecognised means for theorising Anglo-Saxon poetic creativity. Borrowed objects and the art of poetry works at the intersections of materiality and poetics, balancing insights from thing theory and related approaches with close readings of passages from Old English texts.
By:
Denis Ferhatovic (Assistant Professor)
Imprint: Manchester University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 216mm,
Width: 138mm,
Spine: 10mm
Weight: 232g
ISBN: 9781526179142
ISBN 10: 1526179148
Series: Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture
Pages: 200
Publication Date: 01 April 2024
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction: Powerful fragments: ruin, relics, spolia 1 Encyclopedic miniatures: combinatory powers of loot in the Exeter Riddles 2 Architecture of the past and the future: transformative potential of plunder in Exodus 3 Animated, animating: bringing stone, flesh, and text to life in Andreas 4 Zooming out, cutting through: resistance to incorporation in Judith 5 A hoard full of plunder: paradoxical materiality of loss in Beowulf Afterword: Resistant material remnants in Old English and beyond Bibliography Index -- .
Denis Ferhatovi is Associate Professor of English at Connecticut College, New London
Reviews for Borrowed Objects and the Art of Poetry: Spolia in Old English Verse
'Ferhatovic ´demonstrates how productive the turn to material culture can be for understanding early medieval poetry.' Speculum 'Ferhatovic has created a rich tapestry exploring these prominent, unsettling things as they are reflected in the poetry of a culture that knew all too well what plunder meant. His debut monograph provides a sharply argued and unconventional approach to several perplexing and important Old English works, finding a dramatically new angle from which to explore them.' Journal of English and Germanic Philology -- .
