Weaving Words and Binding Bodies: The Poetics of Human Experience in Old English Literature

‘This scholarly, thorough treatment of imagery offers new insights into Old English poetic contemplation of human experience.’

M.B. Busbee, Choice Magazine vol 54:05:2017

‘This study of binding, unbinding, and weaving terminology is stimulating in the course of its many surprises… There is much to recommend in this latest addition to the Toronto Anglo-Saxon Series.’

John M. Hill, Mediaevistik vol 29:2016

‘Weaving words will be a catalyst for future research in many different areas. It will be a valuable reading for anyone interested in gaining new insights from early literature.’

Emily Thornbury, Speculum vol 93:02:2018

"In using poetic style to interrogate the themes of weaving and binding in Old English literature, Megan Cavell’s book Weaving Words and Binding Bodies relates in a limited way to recent work on textiles while primarily concerning itself with a more traditional, philological approach to literary scholarship."

Tiffany Beechy, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Toronto Quarterly, vol 87 3, Summer 2018

"Weaving Words and Binding Bodies is a brilliant, thoroughgoing study of weaving and binding in Anglo-Saxon poems, together with an analysis of related material culture, medieval technology, and concepts such as slavery and servitude."

Mercedes Salvador-Bello, Department of English Language and Literature, University of Seville

"A fascinating examination of the interrelated images of weaving and binding in Old English verse, Weaving Words and Binding Bodies reveals an Anglo-Saxon cultural preoccupation with the conceptual nexus of construction and constriction."

Miranda Wilcox, Department of English, Brigham Young University