Filip Missuno

University of York, Centre for Medieval Studies, Tutor, Research Associate

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I research the interactions of language and literature in Old English and Old Norse texts. I am particularly interested in:
> the evidence for marginal, ambivalent, indeterminate meaning, perceptual and conceptual frontiers as reflected in these languages and literatures, and issues falling within this orbit such as strangeness, ominousness, monstrosity, liminality, transformation, etc;
> and in the interpretation of such evidence while assessing especially how (locally) prominent it is in quantitative and qualitative terms.

I have recently completed a PhD in Old English and Old Norse poetic language, focusing on the complex linguistic and literary representations of darkness and related visual perceptions. This research has uncovered an enigmatically paradoxical and yet surprisingly powerful network of semantic and stylistic phenomena -- which I have been calling ‘shadow’. Recognising ‘shadow’ at work in some of our early medieval texts affords new perspectives from which to re-enjoy them. But I have attempted to show, furthermore, that approaching the evidence for strange darkness systematically on the level of the words and their narrowest contexts, and then moving up to larger literary implications, reveals a greater depth in the underlying poetics than hitherto acknowledged, which can reshape our appreciation of the language and thought behind the literary works and redraw some intra- and intercultural connections.

I currently teach the Old English language modules (Beginners and Advanced) on the MA programme at the Centre for Medieval Studies. I also run the Old English Reading Group and co-run the Old Norse Reading Group.
Supervisors: Dr Matthew Townend and Prof. Elizabeth Tyler

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Papers by Filip Missuno

Glowing Paradoxes and Glimmers of Doom: A Re-evaluation of the Meaning of Old English fāh in Poetic Contexts

The Old English adjective fāh’s distinctive semantics and deployment, particularly in verse, ough... more The Old English adjective fāh’s distinctive semantics and deployment, particularly in verse, ought to be accorded more prominence in our interpretations of the language, literature and thought-worlds of the Anglo-Saxons. While the rich ambivalence of this word is often implied and, occasionally, briefly discussed by critics, much more can be said about its denotations, connotations, contextual relevance and poetic artfulness. The senses usually ascribed (‘hostile’, ‘stained’, ‘variegated’, ‘shining’…) may appear context-fitting enough, but are often ad hoc and over-specific; their fragmentation conceals important features of the adjective’s semantics and of the poetic style with which fāh is intimately bound up. This article, using a philologically-minded literary-critical approach, seeks to unravel the complex semantics of fāh through an analysis of its relationship with sins, blood, treasure, swords and serpents in its literary contexts and trans-contextually. It is argued that the linguistic and literary evidence supports in most cases only one, broad and multifaceted but unified and internally coherent area of meaning. Essentially, fāh signifies ‘gleaming’, but this core denotation is always underlain by intense, dramatic mental/visual images reflecting or foreshadowing doom and death. The remarkable extent in nature and function of this semantic nexus contributes to an enhanced understanding of several poems, including the solving of interesting cruces. This investigation opens up a fuller appreciation of paradoxicality in Old English and helps us recognise the problematics of boundaries and semantic gaps in relation to the poetic language’s extraordinarily associative nature.

'Shadow' and Paradoxes of Darkness in Old English and Old Norse Poetic Language

This thesis confronts, explores, and attempts to meaningfully interpret a surprising nexus of sti... more This thesis confronts, explores, and attempts to meaningfully interpret a surprising nexus of stimulating cruces and paradoxes in Old English poetry and prose and Old Norse skaldic and Eddic poetry. The study focuses on the complex linguistic and literary manifestations of darkness, a complex and long-underestimated phenomenon for which the most appropriate term is 'shadow'. Rather than operating with modern categories and traditional dichotomies (light/darkness), I attempt to approach the evidence on its own terms, working from the words, their collocations, and narrow contexts up to larger literary assessments. Furthermore, the comparative Old English/Old Norse approach can provide both contextualisation for the findings and control over what we can and cannot infer from them.

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