A perusal of alterity in old English poetry

Abstract EN

Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry expresses a great admiration and interest in the main components of the heroic lifestyle known among the Anglo-Saxons like the comitatus, the lord, and the warriors as well as people's ethics, such as loyalty, courage, self-denial, blood vengeance, and wergild.

while this suggests that modern readers can understand and reconstruct the cultural texture of the Anglo-Saxon culture by reading Anglo-Saxon poetry, this paper contends that the Anglo-Saxon culture constitutes a state of alterity for modern readers and that Anglo-Saxon literature is dominated by that atmosphere of alterity, which makes understanding Anglo-Saxon culture through reading its literature a speculation-based task.

relying on Jauss's and Borrow's opposing perspectives about the alterity of medieval literature, this paper analyzes some excerpts from Beowulf, the wife's lament, and other old English poems to prove that such narratives do not completely display the Anglo-Saxon heroic culture; thus, reading the heroic poetry of the Anglo-Saxons does not always result in a full understanding of the Anglo-Saxon culture.