Anglistik 1

This paper introduces a study into the use of wikis as a non-linear form of assessment in two Humanities modules at the University of Winchester. It was funded by the University Learning and Teaching Development Unit. A portfolio of preliminary questionnaires, wiki diaries, concluding interviews alongside objective module outcomes and tutor experience forms the data for this paper. Both modules and the study consciously shift attention away from the more commonly discussed collaborative potential of wikis. Instead, the emphasis lay (and lies) on the non-linear nature and the potential for formative assessment which this hypertext platform offers Higher Education. These wikis were created as individual student wikis, as opposed to group wikis, and thus emphasized the role of the student as primary author and owner of structure and content.

The Paper offers a further insight into the nature and function of the first of the so-called 'Christ' poems of the Exeter Book: 'The Advent Lyrics'. It agrees with others, such as Judith Garde, that the group of Lyrics fashioned around the Monastic O'Antiphones are didactic. Rather than being didactic about the commonplace Christian content, however, I propose that the lyrics teach a more advanced student of Christian doctrine and the process of sacra pagina to use Old English poetry as a medium for meditation. Comments to this effect can be found in the texts, but the group does so mainly by example. Each lyric offers a different approach to rumination upon the underlying antiphon - and the group as a whole is a meditation upon a larger scale.

Cognitive Psychology and especially Cognitive Linguistics provide us with models of thought which allow us to reconsider a common feature of Old English poetry and of meditatio in the style of sacra pagina: their play with the familiar. Fulfilment or disappointment of expectations evoked by the familiar in a poem enables the creation of an extra-textual level which often supersedes the literal in beauty and complexity. Bernard Huppé claimed that the interest of an Old English poem lay ‘in the topography of that journey, in the delight of the maze.’  Huppé understands the poems as ‘webs of words’ which make use of a ‘metaphysical level […] of a common body of doctrinal truths’. My doctoral study on designations for the God in Old English poetry suggested a similar web of words.

The designations for God function as nodes within the poem as cognitive network. They are labels which have a group of attributes associated with them. Literal and theological attributes are stored here alongside frequent patterns of usage within Old English poetic tradition and scriptural tradition alike. The attributes may be conventional or personal, traditional or created within the context of the poem. Attributes shared by more than one label trigger an association between them. Thus a web of meaning, separate from the linear poem, is created. Each recipient will bring his or her own mental set of labels and attributes to the poem, and thus recreates a personal web of meaning, a process similar to that of the sacra pagina exercise.

This 2006 thesis studies designations for the Christian God as part of Old English poetic diction. Cynewulf knew that for mankind, the name of the Redeemer is inexpressible and unfathomable.  A name – for Cynewulf – expresses the quality of that which is named. In the case of God, that quality transcends our understanding and the true name therefore cannot be known. However, the Christian God can be comprehended through his manifestations in this world and thus potentially bears all names. Designations for God in Old English poetry inhabit a position at the meeting point of Christian theological thought and Old English poetic diction. This thesis analyses the usage of these designations.

The analysis is approached from different perspectives within three case studies. The first study is an analysis of the field of rulership/authority among the designations. It is primarily based upon the findings of my database of designations for God in Old English poetry. The following chapter examines the theme of the fall of the angels in the accounts of Genesis A, Genesis B, and Christ and Satan and explores how such a theme influences the choice of designations for God. Close readings, with special consideration of doctrinal and poetic context, form an increasingly important part of the methodology of this and the final case study. The third study concentrates on the Advent Lyrics in order to investigate the designations within the immediate context of the poem itself. I conclude that the designations for God are by no means alliterative fillers, but both tools for a sophisticated poetic style and worthy subjects of poetic endeavour. This study therefore offers new perspectives on how these designations function as prominent structural elements and as versatile and innovative vehicles of theological and cultural traditions in Old English poetry.

This book chapter discusses the semantic change that is responsible for the conflation of the biological whale and the monstrous creature that is embodied in Moby Dick. The Physiologus is of great importance for this shift, as well as a serious of semantic narrowings and expansions around the terms cetus and ballena and Old English hwael and hran.

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The chapter explores cross-overs through the border between Heaven and the created world as represented in Old English poetry in theological context of the period. Next to physical messengers, and signs and portents within this world, other visions open the skies to give sight of heaven itself. Central to the manifestation of the divine is the splendorous wuldor, the essence of the theology of light.

Karl Tamburr has written an encyclopedic survey of the theme of the Harrowing of Hell—Jesus’s descent to the dead after the Crucifixion—in the art, drama, and literature of the Middle Ages, particularly medieval England. More a compendium than an argument, this volume is designed, in its author’s words, as a set of ‘‘interrelated essays’’ that ‘‘reflect the larger trends’’ of the theme from the Anglo-Saxon period to the post-Reformation era (ix). Although the chapters’ many cross-references result in a good deal of repetition, Tamburr has made a valuable contribution in his summaries of church history and in his careful descriptions and close readings of English art and literature on this theme. In his first chapter, ‘‘The Harrowing of Hell and the Easter Liturgy,’’ Tamburr links treatments of the Harrowing in sacred art and in drama. He relates the origins of the Christian tradition of the Harrowing and its appearance in Christian liturgy, especially in the rituals at Easter and at baptisms, as well as in liturgical drama. For example, he offers a clear and enticing explanation of the playing space in the fourteenth-century Harrowing of Hell play at Barking. This chapter establishes a point emphasized frequently in the book, that the Harrowing story is often treated as transcendent, looking ‘‘both backwards and forwards in time’’ (13). The second chapter, ‘‘The Deliverance of the Righteous and Christ as Warrior-King,’’ details the theology of the Harrowing, including the idea that the devil ‘‘forfeited’’ the souls contained in hell because of the Crucifixion. This section concentrates on Augustine, Jerome, and other church fathers, including Ælfric. As Tamburr explains, Old English sermons and poetry follow the example of the earlier church fathers in recognizing types

This paper introduces a study into the use of wikis as a non-linear form of assessment in two Humanities modules at the University of Winchester. It was funded by the University Learning and Teaching Development Unit. A portfolio of preliminary questionnaires, wiki diaries, concluding interviews alongside objective module outcomes and tutor experience forms the data for this paper. Both modules and the study consciously shift attention away from the more commonly discussed collaborative potential of wikis. Instead, the emphasis lay (and lies) on the non-linear nature and the potential for formative assessment which this hypertext platform offers Higher Education. These wikis were created as individual student wikis, as opposed to group wikis, and thus emphasized the role of the student as primary author and owner of structure and content.

The chapter traces the misconception of the malevolent whale to a conflation of concepts and confusion of loanwords within Anglo-Saxon England, where the Old English poetic version of the Physiologus tradition, the Exeter Book 'The Whale', endows the animal with evil intent for the first time. The cultural semantic analysis explores the natural historical and mythological roots for the Cetus and Balenus whale which are ambiguously mapped onto the Old English pair 'hwael' and 'hron'. The study also offers possible real explanations for two of the more outrageous stories that find their way into later bestiaries.

The student conference featured three panels:

(Re-) Reading the Middle Ages
Queer Literature
Images of Women

and, due to the immense success of the Study Outside the Box staging of 'Everyman,' a student performance of the Romance of the Rose (theater and film production).