Early English Poetics

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Special Session

Organizer Name

Jennifer A. Lorden

Organizer Affiliation

Grinnell College

Presider Name

Jennifer A. Lorden

Paper Title 1

Different Meters, Surprising Similarities: Beowulf, Poema Morale, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Presenter 1 Name

Geoffrey Richard Russom

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Brown Univ.

Paper Title 2

The Sociology of Chaucer's Pentameter

Presenter 2 Name

Eric Weiskott

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Boston College

Paper Title 3

Metaphors We Read By: Disciplinary History and Early English Poetic Form

Presenter 3 Name

Shu-han Luo

Presenter 3 Affiliation

Yale Univ.

Start Date

10-5-2019 3:30 PM

Session Location

Valley 3 Stinson 306

Description

This session brings together scholars working across boundaries of period, language, and subfield, to consider anew the configurations within which the earliest English poetry was made. Papers that brings together two or more subfields or disciplines that have been conventionally separated are especially welcome. Possible topics might include: influence across languages (e.g., Old Saxon and Old English, Old Norse and Middle English, Anglo-Norman and Latin); macaronic verse across the medieval period; understudied poetic conventions; theoretical approaches that cast new light on old assumptions; critical histories of the field. Given the long and complex history of studying the various topics brought together here under the umbrella of “early English poetics,” this session invites us to reflect upon new understandings of old literary traditions. Jennifer Lorden