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Chapter 2 - Inventing the Anglo-Saxons

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2020

Jeremy J. Smith
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow
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Summary

In the previous chapter, it was claimed that a text’s formal features reflect contemporary ideologies, and that as a work is copied and recopied these formal features change to reflect shifting socio-cultural imperatives; texts are not only invented in the ancient rhetorical sense (i.e. inventio ‘finding’), but in the modern sense as well. This claim is well demonstrated by the transmission history of a work now canonical in Anglo-Saxon studies: the Old English epic poem Beowulf, surviving in London, British Library, MS Cotton Vitellius A.xv (part II). In addition to Beowulf the codex also contains a poem on the Biblical story of Judith, and three prose works: The Life of St Christopher, The Marvels of the East and The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle. The manuscript was copied by two scribes.

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Chapter
Information
Transforming Early English
The Reinvention of Early English and Older Scots
, pp. 39 - 80
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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