Undoing Babel : : The Tower of Babel in Anglo-Saxon Literature / / Tristan Major.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter ACUP Complete eBook-Package 2018
• VerfasserIn: Major, Tristan,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2018]; ©2018
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Series: Toronto Anglo-Saxon Series
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (312 p.)

The Tower of Babel narrative is one of the most memorable accounts of the Bible, and its interpretative potential has produced a vast array of literary adaptations. Undoing Babel is the first extensive examination of the development of the Babel narrative amongst Anglo-Saxon authors from late antiquity to the eleventh century. Tristan Major’s illuminating and original insight into Anglo-Latin and Old English works, including the writings of Aldhelm, Bede, Alcuin, Ælfric, and Wulfstan, reveals the cultural ideologies and anxieties that transformed the Babel narrative. In doing so, Major argues that these Babel narratives provide a basis for understanding the world’s ethnic and linguistic diversity as well as a theological stimulus to evangelize non-Christian and non-European people. Undoing Babel highlights the depth of literary innovation in this period and disproves any notion of a single Anglo-Saxon reception of biblical sources.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Genesis 10–11 -- Introduction -- Chapter One. Early Jewish and Christian Antiquity -- Chapter Two. Latin Christian Antiquity -- Chapter Three. The Early Anglo-Saxon School at Canterbury -- Chapter Four. Bede and Alcuin -- Chapter Five. Alfred the Great and the Literature of His Reign -- Chapter Six. The Tenth and Early Eleventh Centuries -- Chapter Seven. The Biblical Poems of Junius 11 -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index