"One can emend a mutilated text": Auden's The Orators and the Old English Exeter Book

Christopher Jones

"One can emend a mutilated text": Auden's The Orators and the Old English Exeter Book

School of English

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

This article argues that Book I of Auden's 1931 work 'The Orators' does not merely allude to poems in the Old English Exeter Book as source material, but that it participates in a medievalist model of textual production. Auden's poem performs acts analogous to those such as 'compliatio' and 'ordinatio', and deliberately misrepresents and distorts its source texts even as it alludes to them in order to make a point about the transmission and corruption of canonical texts. In addition, some source material is identified here for the first time.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	261-275
Journal	Text: An interdisciplinary Annual of Textual Studies
Volume	15
Publication status	Published - Jan 2002

Keywords

Auden
Orators
Exeter Book
Old English
Anglo-Saxon
Poetry
Gifts of Men
Fortunes of Men
Maxims

Cite this

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KW - Orators

KW - Exeter Book

KW - Old English

KW - Anglo-Saxon

KW - Poetry

KW - Gifts of Men

KW - Fortunes of Men

KW - Maxims

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JO - Text: An interdisciplinary Annual of Textual Studies

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ER -

"One can emend a mutilated text": Auden's The Orators and the Old English Exeter Book

Abstract

Keywords

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