Jennifer Neville | Royal Holloway, University of London (original) (raw)
Books by Jennifer Neville
This book examines descriptions of the natural world in a wide range of Old English poetry. Jenni... more This book examines descriptions of the natural world in a wide range of Old English poetry. Jennifer Neville describes the physical conditions experienced by the Anglo-Saxons - the animals, diseases, landscapes, seas and weather with which they had to contend. She argues that poetic descriptions of these elements were not a reflection of the existing physical conditions but a literary device used by Anglo-Saxons to define more important issues: the state of humanity, the creation and maintenance of society, the power of individuals, the relationship between God and creation and the power of writing to control information. Examples of contemporary literature in other languages are used to provide a sense of Old English poetry’s particular approach, which incorporated elements from Germanic, Christian and classical sources. The result of this approach was not a consistent cosmological scheme but a rather contradictory vision which reveals much about how the Anglo-Saxons viewed themselves.
Papers by Jennifer Neville
Forum for Modern Language Studies
This paper addresses the attitudes toward foreigners and criminals in Anglo-Saxon law-codes and O... more This paper addresses the attitudes toward foreigners and criminals in Anglo-Saxon law-codes and Old English literature, including the Old English poems Maxims II, Wulf and Eadwacer, and Beowulf. These attitudes derive from definitions of humanity very different from those held by modern readers. Thus the law-codes, far from protecting the entire population from illegal acts, protected only a very small number of people from a particular range of crimes. These edicts are also remarkable for their suspicious and harsh approach not only toward those who had transgressed in the past but also toward those from abroad: foreigners and criminals alike were guilty until proven innocent. Poetic texts reveal a similar hostility to those outside the bounds of society and suggest that the boundary between outsiders like the Wanderer and monsters like Grendel were extremely thin. A human being could become a monster, not through magic or supernatural means, but through legal processes. That is, t...
The late tenth-or early eleventh-century text known as Blickling Homily XIII betrays an Old Engli... more The late tenth-or early eleventh-century text known as Blickling Homily XIII betrays an Old English translator with a fervent belief in the Assumption of the Virgin and less than perfect translation skills. The resulting text is seriously flawed on many levels. Nevertheless, this account of the Assumption of the Virgin provides intriguing insight into an issue which has claimed the attention of many modern thinkers: the presence or absence of the idea of 'selfhood' in pre-modern societies. 1 Despite-indeed, through-its corruptions, confusions, and infelicities, this text's preoccupation with the Virgin's miraculous death undercuts the modern assumption that the idea of the self, in all its current, post-modern glory, was an invention unknown to the Anglo-Saxons. The outlines of the self revealed by this admittedly unique individual may not be familiar to a modern reader, but its baffling nature should not be explained away as an absence. In fact, the relationship between the Virgin's self, soul, and body anticipates the conflicted nature of identity analysed by post-modern and feminist theorists. The story of the Virgin's Assumption, particularly in Anglo-Saxon England, contains more conflicts than certainties, but the basic plot is as follows. 2 Some years after Christ's crucifixion, an angel visits Mary to announce her impending death; meanwhile, clouds whisk the apostles from their preaching locations around the world so that they can attend Mary during her final days. After three days of prayers and conversation, Christ himself descends for the moment of Mary's death, and Mary's soul is conveyed to paradise. The apostles attempt to take Mary's body to a new tomb, but they are assaulted by Jews intent on taking their revenge on Christianity by burning her corpse. 3 1 For a recent overview of contemporary theories of selfhood, see Anthony Elliott, Concepts of the Self (Cambridge: Polity, 2001); for claims of the absence of selfhood in earlier times, see discussion and references below.
Old English literature is rife with passages testifying to the appreciation of the sterner mood o... more Old English literature is rife with passages testifying to the appreciation of the sterner mood of nature, a cognizance of her wintry phenomena, her rigors of land and sky and water. It is only on the side of warmth and bloom and fragrance that the poetry is so woefully lacking in expression, so insensitive to loveliness and joyance. 1 So said Richard Burton in 1894, and many critics have agreed with him. In fact, I think it would be fair to say that most readers would expect a paper on the seasons in Old English poetry to focus on depictions of winter rather than on any other season, since most find descriptions of spring "conventional and lifeless", and references to summer "equally slight and unsatisfactory". 2 The power of a winter storm, on the other hand, is seen to have inspired Old English poets to their best efforts. The particular focus on winter has even been considered a reflection of an original, native mind-set which was gradually lost with the growing influence of Christianity. 3 Although our general inclination is to reject the "unenlightened" views of earlier critics, Old English poetry does tend to focus primarily on the grimness of winter rather than the delights of summer. Part of my aim in this paper is to consider why. In the past it has been suggested that the character of Old English poetry was fixed by the experience of the harsh conditions on the Baltic and North Seas during the Migration of the Germanic peoples. 4 Modern research into climate change 5 suggests that the Anglo-Saxons may indeed have suffered more winter than we
Pondering the Soul's Journey in Exeter Book Riddle 43 Life is frequently represented as a journey... more Pondering the Soul's Journey in Exeter Book Riddle 43 Life is frequently represented as a journey, a process of travelling through the world in space and time. Normally this journey is undertaken by soul and body together; very rarely does the soul travel alone, and, when it does, its departure usually represents the end of the life-journey: death. In some cases, however, the journey of the unbodied soul includes both a departure and a return. Such 'Out-of-Body Experiences' might be expected to provide a fertile ground for speculation regarding the nature of the soul and the relationship between it and the body, yet the texts on the subject that were available and produced in Anglo-Saxon England appear to have different aims. The exception may be Exeter Book Riddle 43, an apparently straightforward riddle remarkable for the lack of scholarly argument regarding its solution. 1 In this essay, I shall use the 'Out-of-Body Experience' tradition as a context against which to unravel Riddle 43's surprisingly profound speculations about the relationship between the body and soul and the journey that they share. I shall argue that expecting the riddle-game to end upon discovery of the solution obscures the advanced theological pondering that underlies this short text. Stories about Out-of-Body Experiences used to be more mainstream than they are now. Today, for example, Out-of-Body Experiences are largely ignored by government, business, and the Christian Church, even if they continue to spawn many books and websites. In the early Middle Ages, however, descriptions of souls leaving and returning to the body appear to have been popular not only among lay people but also among the moral authorities who bequeathed to Anglo-Saxon
Riddles at work in the early medieval tradition, 2020
The Review of English Studies, 2007
... mid godes meahtum, þætte wer ond wif in woruld cennað bearn mid gebyrdum ond mid bleom gyrwað... more ... mid godes meahtum, þætte wer ond wif in woruld cennað bearn mid gebyrdum ond mid bleom gyrwað, tennaþ ond tætaþ, oþþæt seo tid cymeð ... Very often through God's power it happens that a man and woman bring a child into the world through birth, and they adorn him with ...
The Review of English Studies, 2011
... Acknowledgments. I am deeply indebted to Peregrine Horden, Ruth Kennedy, Pirkko Koppinen, Rob... more ... Acknowledgments. I am deeply indebted to Peregrine Horden, Ruth Kennedy, Pirkko Koppinen, Robert Hampson, and Catherine Nall for comments, suggestions, and corrections to drafts of this article. Remaining errors of fact and judgement are my own. Previous Section. ...
English Studies, 2012
Although one of the notorious “obscene” riddles, Exeter Book Riddle 12 contains more than sexual ... more Although one of the notorious “obscene” riddles, Exeter Book Riddle 12 contains more than sexual titillation and denial. This article will address the text's antithetical pairings. Observing these pairings highlights issues of race, class, gender, and morality, but the text confounds any straightforward process of separating self from other in any of these areas and presents a disturbing enmeshing of the two that contradicts the usual expectations of a well-ordered, moral Anglo-Saxon society.
Anglo-Saxon England, 2006
This article sets forth the contrast between the image of the horses in Beowulf and the image of ... more This article sets forth the contrast between the image of the horses in Beowulf and the image of Anglo-Saxon horses that can be derived from archaeology, historical narratives, wills, law codes and glossaries. It focuses particularly on the issue of colour, represented in the poem by the difficult word fealu and its derivative, æppelfealu. It argues that the horses described in Beowulf do not match up closely with Anglo-Saxon horses recorded in any century and that they would have struck the poem's tenth-century audience as very strange. This strangeness has implications for our understanding of Anglo-Saxon reception of the poem.
JEGP, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 2010
This book examines descriptions of the natural world in a wide range of Old English poetry. Jenni... more This book examines descriptions of the natural world in a wide range of Old English poetry. Jennifer Neville describes the physical conditions experienced by the Anglo-Saxons - the animals, diseases, landscapes, seas and weather with which they had to contend. She argues that poetic descriptions of these elements were not a reflection of the existing physical conditions but a literary device used by Anglo-Saxons to define more important issues: the state of humanity, the creation and maintenance of society, the power of individuals, the relationship between God and creation and the power of writing to control information. Examples of contemporary literature in other languages are used to provide a sense of Old English poetry’s particular approach, which incorporated elements from Germanic, Christian and classical sources. The result of this approach was not a consistent cosmological scheme but a rather contradictory vision which reveals much about how the Anglo-Saxons viewed themselves.
Forum for Modern Language Studies
This paper addresses the attitudes toward foreigners and criminals in Anglo-Saxon law-codes and O... more This paper addresses the attitudes toward foreigners and criminals in Anglo-Saxon law-codes and Old English literature, including the Old English poems Maxims II, Wulf and Eadwacer, and Beowulf. These attitudes derive from definitions of humanity very different from those held by modern readers. Thus the law-codes, far from protecting the entire population from illegal acts, protected only a very small number of people from a particular range of crimes. These edicts are also remarkable for their suspicious and harsh approach not only toward those who had transgressed in the past but also toward those from abroad: foreigners and criminals alike were guilty until proven innocent. Poetic texts reveal a similar hostility to those outside the bounds of society and suggest that the boundary between outsiders like the Wanderer and monsters like Grendel were extremely thin. A human being could become a monster, not through magic or supernatural means, but through legal processes. That is, t...
The late tenth-or early eleventh-century text known as Blickling Homily XIII betrays an Old Engli... more The late tenth-or early eleventh-century text known as Blickling Homily XIII betrays an Old English translator with a fervent belief in the Assumption of the Virgin and less than perfect translation skills. The resulting text is seriously flawed on many levels. Nevertheless, this account of the Assumption of the Virgin provides intriguing insight into an issue which has claimed the attention of many modern thinkers: the presence or absence of the idea of 'selfhood' in pre-modern societies. 1 Despite-indeed, through-its corruptions, confusions, and infelicities, this text's preoccupation with the Virgin's miraculous death undercuts the modern assumption that the idea of the self, in all its current, post-modern glory, was an invention unknown to the Anglo-Saxons. The outlines of the self revealed by this admittedly unique individual may not be familiar to a modern reader, but its baffling nature should not be explained away as an absence. In fact, the relationship between the Virgin's self, soul, and body anticipates the conflicted nature of identity analysed by post-modern and feminist theorists. The story of the Virgin's Assumption, particularly in Anglo-Saxon England, contains more conflicts than certainties, but the basic plot is as follows. 2 Some years after Christ's crucifixion, an angel visits Mary to announce her impending death; meanwhile, clouds whisk the apostles from their preaching locations around the world so that they can attend Mary during her final days. After three days of prayers and conversation, Christ himself descends for the moment of Mary's death, and Mary's soul is conveyed to paradise. The apostles attempt to take Mary's body to a new tomb, but they are assaulted by Jews intent on taking their revenge on Christianity by burning her corpse. 3 1 For a recent overview of contemporary theories of selfhood, see Anthony Elliott, Concepts of the Self (Cambridge: Polity, 2001); for claims of the absence of selfhood in earlier times, see discussion and references below.
Old English literature is rife with passages testifying to the appreciation of the sterner mood o... more Old English literature is rife with passages testifying to the appreciation of the sterner mood of nature, a cognizance of her wintry phenomena, her rigors of land and sky and water. It is only on the side of warmth and bloom and fragrance that the poetry is so woefully lacking in expression, so insensitive to loveliness and joyance. 1 So said Richard Burton in 1894, and many critics have agreed with him. In fact, I think it would be fair to say that most readers would expect a paper on the seasons in Old English poetry to focus on depictions of winter rather than on any other season, since most find descriptions of spring "conventional and lifeless", and references to summer "equally slight and unsatisfactory". 2 The power of a winter storm, on the other hand, is seen to have inspired Old English poets to their best efforts. The particular focus on winter has even been considered a reflection of an original, native mind-set which was gradually lost with the growing influence of Christianity. 3 Although our general inclination is to reject the "unenlightened" views of earlier critics, Old English poetry does tend to focus primarily on the grimness of winter rather than the delights of summer. Part of my aim in this paper is to consider why. In the past it has been suggested that the character of Old English poetry was fixed by the experience of the harsh conditions on the Baltic and North Seas during the Migration of the Germanic peoples. 4 Modern research into climate change 5 suggests that the Anglo-Saxons may indeed have suffered more winter than we
Pondering the Soul's Journey in Exeter Book Riddle 43 Life is frequently represented as a journey... more Pondering the Soul's Journey in Exeter Book Riddle 43 Life is frequently represented as a journey, a process of travelling through the world in space and time. Normally this journey is undertaken by soul and body together; very rarely does the soul travel alone, and, when it does, its departure usually represents the end of the life-journey: death. In some cases, however, the journey of the unbodied soul includes both a departure and a return. Such 'Out-of-Body Experiences' might be expected to provide a fertile ground for speculation regarding the nature of the soul and the relationship between it and the body, yet the texts on the subject that were available and produced in Anglo-Saxon England appear to have different aims. The exception may be Exeter Book Riddle 43, an apparently straightforward riddle remarkable for the lack of scholarly argument regarding its solution. 1 In this essay, I shall use the 'Out-of-Body Experience' tradition as a context against which to unravel Riddle 43's surprisingly profound speculations about the relationship between the body and soul and the journey that they share. I shall argue that expecting the riddle-game to end upon discovery of the solution obscures the advanced theological pondering that underlies this short text. Stories about Out-of-Body Experiences used to be more mainstream than they are now. Today, for example, Out-of-Body Experiences are largely ignored by government, business, and the Christian Church, even if they continue to spawn many books and websites. In the early Middle Ages, however, descriptions of souls leaving and returning to the body appear to have been popular not only among lay people but also among the moral authorities who bequeathed to Anglo-Saxon
Riddles at work in the early medieval tradition, 2020
The Review of English Studies, 2007
... mid godes meahtum, þætte wer ond wif in woruld cennað bearn mid gebyrdum ond mid bleom gyrwað... more ... mid godes meahtum, þætte wer ond wif in woruld cennað bearn mid gebyrdum ond mid bleom gyrwað, tennaþ ond tætaþ, oþþæt seo tid cymeð ... Very often through God's power it happens that a man and woman bring a child into the world through birth, and they adorn him with ...
The Review of English Studies, 2011
... Acknowledgments. I am deeply indebted to Peregrine Horden, Ruth Kennedy, Pirkko Koppinen, Rob... more ... Acknowledgments. I am deeply indebted to Peregrine Horden, Ruth Kennedy, Pirkko Koppinen, Robert Hampson, and Catherine Nall for comments, suggestions, and corrections to drafts of this article. Remaining errors of fact and judgement are my own. Previous Section. ...
English Studies, 2012
Although one of the notorious “obscene” riddles, Exeter Book Riddle 12 contains more than sexual ... more Although one of the notorious “obscene” riddles, Exeter Book Riddle 12 contains more than sexual titillation and denial. This article will address the text's antithetical pairings. Observing these pairings highlights issues of race, class, gender, and morality, but the text confounds any straightforward process of separating self from other in any of these areas and presents a disturbing enmeshing of the two that contradicts the usual expectations of a well-ordered, moral Anglo-Saxon society.
Anglo-Saxon England, 2006
This article sets forth the contrast between the image of the horses in Beowulf and the image of ... more This article sets forth the contrast between the image of the horses in Beowulf and the image of Anglo-Saxon horses that can be derived from archaeology, historical narratives, wills, law codes and glossaries. It focuses particularly on the issue of colour, represented in the poem by the difficult word fealu and its derivative, æppelfealu. It argues that the horses described in Beowulf do not match up closely with Anglo-Saxon horses recorded in any century and that they would have struck the poem's tenth-century audience as very strange. This strangeness has implications for our understanding of Anglo-Saxon reception of the poem.
JEGP, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 2010
English Studies, 2012
Although one of the notorious “obscene” riddles, Exeter Book Riddle 12 contains more than sexual ... more Although one of the notorious “obscene” riddles, Exeter Book Riddle 12 contains more than sexual titillation and denial. This article will address the text’s antithetical pairings. Observing these pairings highlights issues of race, class, gender, and morality, but the text confounds any straightforward process of separating self from other in any of these areas and presents a disturbing enmeshing of the two that contradicts the usual expectations of a well-ordered, moral Anglo-Saxon society.