A Word for All Seasons: Pastoral Letters and Homilies of Aelfric

FAIN: FB-50233-04

Aaron J. Kleist
Biola University (La Mirada, CA 90639-0002)

Of the centuries that comprise the Old English period--and thus (temporally speaking) the first third of English Literature--one would be hard pressed to find one more significant than the Tenth, in which reformers inspired by the court of Charlemagne engineered a resurgence of literacy in a land decimated by Viking invasion. Among the writers of this period, perhaps the most educated, prolific, and influential was a monk named Aelfric of Eynsham. While promising work has been done on Aelfric's complex corpus, scores of minor texts remain unpublished or scattered throughout incomplete nineteenth- or early-twentieth-century editions. While the re-editing of all this material would be a lifetime's ambition, a limited collection of key homiletic and epistolary works would provide a staple reference both for students and senior scholars of the Old English period. The project would result in a two-volume edition of twenty-seven unpublished, partially-published, or out-of-print texts by Aelfric from some thirty-four manuscripts. The edited texts would be accompanied by an introduction, commentary, and translation, making them accessible to non-specialists while providing detailed analysis for researchers versed in Anglo-Saxon.

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