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Elements of Old English Literature - Coggle Diagram
Elements of Old English Literature
Working with Manuscripts
Scarcity of sources
Damaged/partial sources
Paleographical techniques
'Dead' languages
Scarcity of sources
Literary corpus of +- 400 extant manuscripts
Poetic corpus preserved almost solely in 4 manuscripts: the Junius Manuscript, Exeter book, Vercelli book and the Nowell codex.
Vernacular Old English vs Latin
Damaged/partial sources
Found in the Nowell codex (same manuscript as Beowulf)
British Library: cotton MS Vitellius A XV ff.202r-209v
Surviving fragment consists of 348 lines
Manuscript incomplete... and damaged by 1731 Cotton fire
Original length of poem unknown
Probably composed in the tenth century (debated)
Paleographical techniques
Assessing manuscript condition
Scribal hands
Reused vellum
Dead languages: Old English Characters
Working with unknowns
Additional characters
Manuscript abbreviations
The poem
Old English Judith
Old english adaptation of events in the book of judith
Alliterative verse poetry
348 lines fragmentary
Genre: religious; heroic
Popular figure
Old English Judith: Narrative background
Setting - Bethulia
Cultures
Assurians
Hebrews
Unidentified time
Characters
Holofernes - Assyrian general
Judith - Bethulian noblewoman
Judith's handmaid
Assyrian army
Buthulian Army
Situation
Fourth day of the Bethulian siege by Assyrian army
Outline of old english judith
Enters assyrian camp during feast
Judith is taken to holofernes tent
Drunk holofernes returns to his tent to rape judith
Holofernes passes out
Judith prays for mercy and courage and then decapitates holofernes
Judith and handmaiden sneak back to Bethulia
Judith shows Holofernes head to army and incites them to battle
Bethulians attack the
Themes
Enlightened 'christian' vs ignorant heathen
Morality
Temperence vs exccess
Leadership
War/violence
Heroism