Inside Old English

Inside Old English: Essays in Honour of Bruce Mitchell offers readers a comprehensive insight into the world of Old English. Brings together original essays written by prominent specialists in the field in honour of Bruce Mitchell, the eminent Oxford scholar and co-author of the bestselling A Guide to Old English, 6th edition Encourages readers to engage with the literary, cultural, intellectual, religious and historical contexts of Old English texts Explores the problems scholars face in interpreting and editing Old English texts Contributors provide authoritative and informative perspectives, drawing out connections between different contexts and pointing readers towards the essential secondary literature for each topic

Notes on Contributors ix Acknowledgements xiii List of Abbreviations xiv Foreword xvi Bruce Mitchell xviii Fred C. Robinson Introduction 1 John Walmsley 1 Eight Notes on the Beowulf Text 19 Alfred Bammesberger 2 A Point Well Taken: Manuscript Punctuation and Old English Poems 38 Daniel Donoghue 3 The Incomparable Wryness of Old English Poetry 59 Roberta Frank 4 Straining Words and Striving Voices: Polysemy and Ambiguity and the Importance of Context in the Disclosure of Meaning 74 Antonette diPaolo Healey 5 “Eala, geferan and gode wyrhtan”: On Interjections in Old English 91 Risto Hiltunen 6 Speaking One’s Mind in The Wanderer 117 Susan Irvine 7 Wulfstan’s Scandinavian Loanword Usage: An Aspect of the Linguistic Situation in the Late Old English Danelaw 134 Tadao Kubouchi 8 An Aspect of Old English Poetic Diction: The Postpositioning of Prepositions 153 Michael Lapidge 9 Issues for Editors of Anglo-Saxon Poetry in Manuscript Form 181 Bernard J. Muir 10 Language and Style in Two Anonymous Old English Easter Homilies 203 Hiroshi Ogawa 11 Latin Influence on an Old English Idiom: “To Wit” 222 Matti Rissanen 12 Germanic *uargaz (OE wearh) and the Finnish Evidence 242 Fred C. Robinson 13 How the Leopard Got His Spots: English Grammatical Categories, Latin Terms 248 John Walmsley A Bibliography of Writings by Bruce Mitchell 1956–2004 268 Select Bibliography 279 List of Editions Used 282 Index of Names 287 Index of Old English Words and Phrases 290 Index of Subjects 291