Epistolary Acts: Anglo-Saxon Letters and Early English Media

240 Pages·2018·1.456 MB·English

by  Jordan Zweck

EPISTOLARY ACTS
Anglo-Saxon Letters and Early English Media
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Epistolary Acts
Anglo-Saxon Letters
and Early English Media
JORDAN ZWECK
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
© University of Toronto Press 2018
Toronto Buffalo London
www.utorontopress.com
Printed in the U.S.A.
ISBN 978-1-4875-0100-6
Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with
vegetable-based inks.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Zweck, Jordan, 1981–, author
Epistolary acts : Anglo-Saxon letters and early English media / Jordan Zweck.
(Toronto Anglo-Saxon series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4875-0100-6 (cloth)
1.English literature – Old English, ca. 450–1100 – History and criticism.
2.Letter writing – England – History – Medieval, 500–1500. 3. Letters
in literature. I. Title. II. Series: Toronto Anglo-Saxon series
PR275.L47Z84 2018 820.9'353 C2017-903714-5
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its
publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts
Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.
Funded by the Financé par le
Government gouvernement
of Canada du Canada
For Colin
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xi
Introduction: Epistolary Acts and The Husband’s Message 3
1 Reconstructing the Anglo-Saxon ars dictaminis: Form, Vocabulary,
and Immediacy 24
2 Spreading the Word: The Sunday Letter, Mass Communication,
and the Self-Replicating Document 63
3 Messengers, Materiality, and Transmission in the Old English
Apollonius of Tyre, Letter of Abgar, and Life of St Mary of Egypt 106
4 Bodies of Record: Witnessing, Memory, and Erasure in Ælfric’s
Life of St Basil and the Anonymous Old English Legend of the
Seven Sleepers 146
Epilogue: Epistolary Afterlives 185
Bibliography 195
Index 215
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