British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences
Thursday 2 October 2008
The Alfredian project and its aftermath
Rethinking the literary history of the ninth and tenth centuries
Professor Malcolm Godden
Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, University of Oxford
| This lecture has been unavoidably postponed as Professor Malcolm Gooden is indisposed. It will be rescheduled at a later date. |
King Alfred’s Preface on the state of learning in England quickly became of the best-known Anglo-Saxon writings, and one of the key documents for writing the cultural history of the period. But there is much that is doubtful about the programme of translation and book-production which has been deduced from the Preface, and the Alfredian initiative itself was probably of limited scope and doubtful novelty. Instead, some of the texts traditionally associated with the king can be seen as part of a quite distinct and more ambitious initiative engaging with more challenging and far-reaching ideas.
Professor Malcolm Godden was awarded the 2001 British Academy Sir Israel Gollancz Prize, for the three-volume edition of Aelfric’s Catholic Homilies, published by the Early English Text Society (EETS) in 1979, 1997 and 2000 by †Peter Clemoes and Malcolm Godden. His research interests include Alfredian prose, Wulfstan of York, Ælfric of Eynsham, and medieval drama.
SIR ISRAEL GOLLANCZ MEMORIAL LECTURE
In 1924 a Biennial Lecture on English Studies was endowed by Mrs Frida Mond. The series deals with ‘Old English or Early English Language and Literature, or a philological subject connected with the history of English, more particularly during the early periods of the language, or cognate subjects, or some textual study and interpretation’.
This lecture was subsequently delivered on 15 January 2009. MORE INFORMATION