Chapter 6 - Old English at the Midcentury

Summary

Literary practice is a distinctive form of historical thinking and early medieval culture is an important component of literary creativity and innovation in the 1940s and 1950s. This chapter examines the opportunities early medieval English poetry afforded writers and scholars in Britain in the 1940s and 1950s. Modern writers in this period negotiated the medieval past in their work in different ways. Outright hostility sits alongside an awareness that thinking of the medieval is a necessary component of modern culture. To give a sense of this literary engagement, this chapter offers an account of Old English at the mid-century in relation to four profoundly different writers, Kingsley Amis (1922–1995), Gavin Bone (1907–1942), Bryher (Annie Winifred Ellerman, 1894–1983), and Angus Wilson (1913–1991). The work of these writers and scholars demonstrates that early medieval culture is part of a broader post-War inquiry into society, culture, sexuality, race and ethnocentrism.