The Old English Translation of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum in its Historical and Cultural Context

Download or read book The Old English Translation of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum in its Historical and Cultural Context written by Andreas Lemke and published by Göttingen University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Did King Alfred the Great commission the Old English translation of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, probably the masterpiece of medieval Anglo-Latin Literature, as part of his famous program of translation to educate the Anglo-Saxons? Was the Old English Historia, by any chance, a political and religious manifesto for the emerging ‘Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons’? Do we deal with the literary cornerstone of a nascent English identity at a time when the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were threatened by a common enemy: the Vikings? Andreas Lemke seeks to answer these questions – among others – in his recent publication. He presents us with a unique compendium of interdisciplinary approaches to the subject and sheds new light on the Old English translation of the Historia in a way that will fascinate scholars of Literature, Language, Philology and History.