About
This began as an Old English blog, but it has evolved over the years and it’s time to update the ‘About’ section. The topics in this blog are not strictly confined to Anglo-Saxon language and literature. If you want a bit more Old English, check out my other blog, Old English Wordhord. This blog explores interactions between the medieval and modern worlds through literature, history, and art, as well as reporting on medievalist events, conferences, and classes.
Carolyn Dinshaw says, ‘[T]he Middle Ages are taken to be absolutely other but turn out to be only a refraction of the present…’ and describes ‘getting medieval’ as ‘[t]he process of touching, of making partial connections between incommensurate entities’.* So I guess my goal here is to get medieval.
If you’re wondering about the name, it’s what happens when lit geeks go to watch roller derby. Players have derby names, fun but NSFW necessarily (see examples). My friends and I were coming up with our own literature-themed derby names (Kill-ga-mesh, Julius Sieze-her, Merchant of Vengeance, and…well, you get the idea).
If you enjoy my posts, you can find out more about my research on Academia.edu. There’s also the aforementioned Old English Wordhord blog and Facebook page, or follow @OEWordhord on Twitter.
*Carolyn Dinshaw, Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communities, Pre- and Postmodern (Duke University Press, 1999), pp. 19, 54.
beoshewulf 
Eala! I’m a French student who loves languages, I love English and as, 4 years ago now, I started German at school I realized that these two languages were actually close, it was the beginning of my main passion: Germanic languages. I then learnt Dutch, Swedish and studied a lot about all possible and imaginable modern Germanic languages^^ But then exactly one year ago, i happened on a ‘Guide to Old English’ and bought it… And again it was the beginning of a new passion within languages: Old English (and Old Saxon from Germany and the Netherlands as well 🙂 ; and for the six last months I started learning and reading Old English and Old Germanic poetry, and sometimes I try to write some (but it’s hard cause I’m only a beginner^^). You can check my deviantArt profile: http://www.sewandrere.deviantart.com (but i haven’t brought any OE poetry yet^^)
I would be eager to become a heorðgeneat, i think this blog is exactly what I wanted^^
I’m glad you get so much pleasure out of studying Old English too! I’m afraid I haven’t kept up with this blog very well recently, but now I know that there are actually a few heorðgeneatas out there who read it, I’ll try to post something new soon. Thank you for your comment! 🙂
Eala! I have been teaching myself Anglo Saxon and now I am looking for a London-based Anglo Saxon reading group to share my experiences. I imagine perhaps half a dozen fellow enthusiasts, heorðgeneatas as you say, of a range of abilities who would like to read Anglo Saxon together. Do you think it might be possible to do this?
At King’s College London we have a weekly Old English reading group. I will email you privately to get you in touch with the organiser. If that’s too academic-based or not exactly what you’re looking for, we could think about setting up something that meets less frequently at London pubs…’Beers and Beowulf’ or something catchy and alliterative like that. I wonder if others would be interested…
Thank you so much for following me, mainly because it lead me to your own blog! I love how much variation in terms of subject matter you have here! I actually already follow your twitter page @OEWordHord and it is definitely one of my favourites!
I’m glad that you like @OEWordhord! 🙂 I’m interested in looking at your blog posts too. I haven’t posted anything on this blog for a long time as I’m in the process of writing up my dissertation, but I hope to get back to it this summer.
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Eala! I’ve been happily following you for a while & commenting on various Wordhord posts, as you’ll be aware. Just thought about sharing one of my latest posts with you: https://babbitman.wordpress.com/2016/08/07/a-childish-approach-to-serious-history/
Haha, good old Cnut. This book’s title is quite shocking to non-medievalists too, if you want one to add to your collection. (Also a great read!) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Giants-Monsters-Middle-Medieval-Cultures/dp/0816632170 (interesting that Amazon chose to alter the title in the url)
Shame they reduced the font size for the sex bit. I like the idea of someone thinking they have seen something about “GIANT SEX MONSTERS” 😉
I swear the copy I got from the library had a better cover. Whatever you do, DO NOT google image search the title of this book.