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Anglia (Tübingen), 2022-12, Vol.140 (3), p.373-420
2022

Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte
Titel
Wulf and Eadwacer Reloaded: John of Antioch and the Starving Wife of Odoacer
Ist Teil von
  • Anglia (Tübingen), 2022-12, Vol.140 (3), p.373-420
Ort / Verlag
De Gruyter Mouton
Erscheinungsjahr
2022
Link zum Volltext
Quelle
Alma/SFX Local Collection
Beschreibungen/Notizen
  • This study re-examines the idea that Eadwacer in the short Old English ‘Elegy’ is a literary representation of the historical Odoacer, a fifth-century Germanic king of Italy, and Wulf is his historical and traditional literary opponent, Theoderic the Ostrogoth. The text of the poem is compared for the first time with the historical records of the contention between Odoacer and Theoderic, and particularly of the siege of Ravenna (490–493). A new and revealing analogue is identified in a seventh-century chronicle of this event by John of Antioch, which introduces Odoacer’s wife as a woman who is starved to death, mirroring a puzzling detail in the poem. It is argued that the historical record (itself featuring literary influence) explains the characters and scenario of , which can thus be re-interpreted as a linguistically highly adept and bitter lyric spoken by Eadwacer’s wife, lamenting her marriage to him and longing for her outlaw love, Wulf, set in the landscape of northern Italy. It is argued that it is a unique example of a poem in the (possibly Continental-derived) Anglo-Saxon Theoderic tradition, which was otherwise lost save for a few brief allusions in other poems. It is also suggested that the importance of its speaker and her feminine viewpoint ought to be incorporated into our concept of “heroic” poetry, as it existed in England by the latter tenth century.
Sprache
Englisch
Identifikatoren
ISSN: 0340-5222
eISSN: 1865-8938
DOI: 10.1515/ang-2022-0056
Titel-ID: cdi_crossref_primary_10_1515_ang_2022_0056

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