This thesis examines the representation of the devil in late Anglo-Saxon England as perceived by the large, lay audience, which is represented only rarely in the textual record. Considering the relationship between the interpretations of the period as evinced by literary, historical and archaeological evidence, the investigation considers the extent to which we can discern the presence and profile of an audience for the themes with which the evidence is concerned. The surviving vernacular texts of late Anglo-Saxon England indicate a growth in the importance of the canon of homiletic texts and an expansion of its function in the last decades of the tenth century. By considering the representation of the character of the devil and similar characters such as attendant demons, Antichrist, and human agents typologically and explicitly linked with the devil, this thesis takes the traditional approach of a thematic investigation and augments it by considering the impact of these representations in the context of their relative influence on audiences as evinced by their survival in the manuscript record. Considering the authors’ subsequent re-engagement with their own canons, this thesis seeks to locate attitudes towards audience and the manner in which the expressive opportunity offered by the devil is moulded to its function in motivating specific action in the texts’ audience. Through their representation of the devil, homilists show both active engagement with their audiences’ pastoral needs and anxiety about their limitations.

This thesis seeks to recognise the agency and autonomy that nonhuman ’things’ have in Anglo-Saxon literature and culture. Drawing on a variety of sources (from dream-visions and riddles to stone sculpture and gospelbooks) it examines the relation between inscribed voices, bodies and early medieval artifacts, looking at how nonhumans might be as active and talkative as humans are assumed to be. In arguing for the agency of things, this work is informed by what has become known as ’thing theory’ and as such rethinks conventional divisions between ’animate’ human subjects and ’inanimate’ nonhuman objects. Throughout the course of the thesis, the Anglo-Saxon ’thing’ will be shown to resist such categorisation. But the active role things have in the early medieval world can also be linked to the Germanic origins of the word, where a jb/’ng is a sort of assembly, with the ability to gather other elements - materials, bodies, ideas - to it. It is in this way that a thing might be said to speak. By moulding meaning and matter together into a distinct whole, a cross, a casket, a book, a relic, becomes talkative. Such talking things can move across boundaries of time and space in ways that embodied humans cannot, transporting the past into the present and reshaping the moment into which they arrive.

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This thesis presents an interdisciplinary approach towards understanding the ways in which Anglo-Saxons perceived the birds around them and the cultural associations with which we find them endowed in the literature. It focuses on closely examining the entire range of primary sources available to us in order to build as accurate and as complete a picture of Anglo-Saxon bird-lore as possible, and it stresses the indivisibility of observational experiences of birds and their cultural associations. As very little work has been done on birds in Old English, this thesis starts with the fundamentals: how were birds categorised, identified and differentiated? Such fundamental questions must be addressed if we are not to anachronistically impose our own understanding on the Old English evidence. My examination reveals that birds were primarily heard, rather than seen, and that this experience of birds is reflected in the literature, where descriptions focus on their calls, instead of their appearances. This aural primacy is stressed throughout the thesis. In the first half of the thesis I argue for remnants of an apparently ancient, and common Germanic, practice of augury in the literature of Anglo-Saxon England, in which the vocalisations of birds were held to contain prophecies and tidings of present import. I present arguments for this belief being grounded in observed experience, stressing the connection between bird-lore and the lived experiences of birds in the Anglo-Saxons’ environment. In the second half of the thesis, I demonstrate that Christian bird-lore was quite different, being steeped in symbolism and scholarly tradition rather than naturalistic observation, but that it had common ground in associating birds with divine knowledge. I subsequently show how the Christian traditions of birds interacted with pre-Christian bird-lore – both in terms of augury and in terms of Anglo-Saxon proto-scientific classification.

The fields of translation and creative writing have long been seen as entirely distinct, with many writers drawing a distinction between types based on both the level of syntactic experimentation and the background of the translator. While most theorists would disagree, popular opinion (and the opinion of some poet/translators) seems to be that the two types of writing are differentiated by the amount of academic rigour and creative inspiration that goes into each: translation and creative writing are regarded as not merely different kinds of writing, but as involving different ways of writing. This thesis is an introspective exploration into the nature of translation, via a new translation of the Old English poem Beowulf. By translating Beowulf, reporting on that process, and comparing it with my creative work, this work provides an articulation of the creative process that views translation as a particular way of writing creatively that uses a source text as a narrative constraint. This work consists of two components: creative and critical. The creative portion is a translation of Beowulf which breaks the source poem up into numerous smaller pieces presented in a variety of voices, registers, and viewpoints. The critical portion is an examination of how that translation came about, and delineates the entire process, from initial preconceptions to final finished work. It explores the issues of how to domesticate or foreignise a poem so removed from modern England both culturally and temporally, what level of knowledge a translator can or should expect of her readers, and where knowledge and authority can be situated in a translation. The methodology of the critical portion is an analysis of Beowulf's history as a source text and as a translation, a study of translation theories, and an experiential analysis of the process of producing a new translation of Beowulf.

This thesis presents an interdisciplinary cultural history of the Anglo-Saxon relationship with trees and woodland. Although the paramount importance of woodland to the Anglo-Saxon world is a known and undisputed aspect of early medieval studies, the intricacies of the relationship between the Anglo-Saxons and trees have never been fully appreciated because this subject has not, until now, been the focus of an interdisciplinary study. By exploring the representation of trees and woodland in Old English literary culture in the context of Anglo-Saxon literary-historical sources and the early medieval archaeological record, this thesis seeks to shed new light upon the terms of this complex interaction. I present arguments for the existence of a common Germanic tree creation myth, reaffirm the notion of an Anglo-Saxon world tree analogous to the Norse Yggdrasill that was subsequently replaced by the cross, and re-evaluate the role of trees in Anglo-Saxon heathenism and Christianity. I demonstrate that the paramount importance of woodland in Anglo-Saxon material culture was understood, appreciated, and is well represented in Old English literature. Furthermore, I show that attitudes towards the physical make-up of settlements were strongly defined by an enduring attachment to woodland that had its origins in the forests of first-century Germany.

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A collection of poems translated from the Old English poem Judith, and loosely adapted to the period of English history between 980-1000CE, particularly the second wave of Viking invasions as recorded by Alfred in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Judith: A New Verse Translation tells the story of Judith, an Anglo-Saxon woman who saves her town from destruction by seducing and beheading the enemy general, Holofernes. The collection uses multiple voices to create a multi-layered narrative experience, and to re-create textually the audience-adaptive nature of live storytelling. The critical commentary accompanying the poetry compares the central character of Judith with an important figure from the Old English epic poem Beowulf – namely, Grendel’s mother, the only other physically violent woman present in the Old English poetic corpus. Common critical perceptions of both women are deconstructed through the use of linguistic and historical analysis, and through a thorough examination of the traditions of translation surrounding both poems. The commentary also addresses the ‘myth of the scop’ by tracing the creation of the popular image of the itinerant poet employed by kings back to the Anglo-Saxons themselves. The Anglo-Saxon usage of storytelling and their creation of mythologized histories are discussed as methods of solidifying a collective cultural identity, and of ingraining social mores and taboos into the public consciousness. Lastly, the commentary offers an in-depth examination of the mechanics of Old English prosody, and explains how those techniques have been adapted for use in Judith, combined with contemporary poetic techniques. There is also a historically-based discussion of the narratalogical choices made in constructing the collection.

This thesis aims to take a bottom-up approach to questions of Anglo-Saxon identity. Whereas recent studies have tended to begin with a concept such as Englishness or gender and used it as a glass through which to view Anglo-Saxon texts, I will instead begin by considering some of the basics of identity and considering how they may coalesce to construct more complex identities such as ethnicity. The first two chapters deal with the mind and intellect. They consider the bases of identity which may be found in the use of words, education and wisdom. Chapter one considers the processes of structuring identity through words, whether spoken or written. It focuses on the tensions between orality and literacy, considering the authority and status that each, in its different ways, may confer on individuals who use them well. Chapter two considers the role of communal wisdom and what it means to be wise. It asks whether wisdom is a type of identity in itself or something which is inherent in a range of different identities. Chapters three to six explore the physical aspects of identity. Chapter three identifies potential sources of conflict between secular culture and Christian ideas of bodily integrity, particularly in the area of sexuality. Chapter four examines the ways in which sexuality is subsumed in a concern with lineage, and goes on to consider the role of family in characterising an individual's reputation and virtue. Chapter five considers the results of physical impairment. Impairment is seen to be stylised and treated in a highly symbolic manner, becoming an outward sign of other kinds of identity, such as evil or holiness. Finally, chapter six considers the role of violence in constructing identity, examining the pain and suffering of saintly martyrs and the paradigms of heroism found in Beowulfand The Battle of Maldon. It asks whether it is possible for Christian and heroic identities to coexist in a single individual. The conclusion surveys the idea of "Englishness", seeking to show how this concept is informed by numerous other types of identity. It questions whether Englishness informs other types of behaviour, or is informed by them. It ends by advancing the idea that any study of Anglo-Saxon identity must take into account the multiplicity of identities available to individuals in the period.