Undoing Babel: The Tower of Babel in Anglo-Saxon Literature

307 Pages·2018·1.851 MB·English

by  Tristan Major

UNDOING BABEL
The Tower of Babel in Anglo-Saxon Literature
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Undoing Babel
The Tower of Babel
in Anglo-Saxon Literature
TRISTAN MAJOR
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 978-1-4875-0054-2 (cloth)
Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetable-based
inks.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Major, Tristan, author
Undoing Babel : the Tower of Babel in Anglo-Saxon literature / Tristan Major.
(Toronto Anglo-Saxon series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4875-0054-2 (hardcover)
1.English literature – Old English, ca. 450–1100 – History and criticism.
2.Babel, Tower of, in literature. I. Title.
PR173.M35 2018 829'.09372 C2017-904464-8
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Federation for
the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications
Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada.
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
To Zoe
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Genesis 10–11 xi
Introduction 3
1 Early Jewish and Christian Antiquity 27
2 Latin Christian Antiquity 50
3 The Early Anglo-Saxon School at Canterbury 78
4 Bede and Alcuin 96
5 Alfred the Great and the Literature of His Reign 133
6 The Tenth and Early Eleventh Centuries 158
7 The Biblical Poems of Junius 11 209
8 Conclusion 237
Bibliography 245
Index 285
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Acknowledgments
This book is the result of almost a decade of research and writing that first
began in Pauline Thompson’s graduate class on Ælfric at the University of
Toronto, and now concludes at the Library of Qatar University, where I
am writing this. Over this decade, I have had the privilege of becoming
indebted to numerous people and institutions for providing me with help
and insight. At the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of
Toronto, I owe thanks to Michael Elliot, Michael Herren, Toni Healey,
David and Ian McDougall, Carol Percy, Pauline Thompson, David
Townsend, and Joan Holland, who all supported and encouraged my re-
search. Andy Scheil has also provided invaluable help both as and after
agreeing to becoming involved in my research as an external examiner; and
Andy Orchard continues to be a profound source of knowledge on so
many aspects of Anglo-Saxon literature – I am deeply grateful for his en-
thusiasm and attentiveness.
I am also grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council Canada which generously funded a two-year Postdoctoral
Fellowship at the University of British Columbia. During this time, I was
granted the space and resources to expand my research in fruitful direc-
tions. At UBC I was very fortunate to have been able to work under the
mentorship of Gernot Wieland. I am truly grateful for the amount of in-
sight and support he provided me, especially for his careful readings and
comments on all aspects of my research.
At Qatar University I have had the benefit of working with extreme-
ly talented undergraduate students. I owe thanks to Sarah Maysarah Al-
Alami for her help proofreading portions of a draft, and to Mashael
Al-Mahmoud for reading the work in its entirety. I am also grateful to
Qatar University for providing me with generous financial support for
acquiring various resources necessary to bring this work to completion.