Traditional Subjectivities: The Old English Poetics of Mentality

“Britt Mize’s persuasive, extremely valuable study makes a significant and very original contribution to a conversation that presently holds great interest for many Anglo-Saxonists. Throughout the book, he takes every opportunity to examine the Old English poetics of mentality with the utmost scholarly responsibility, attention to detail, and keen insight. Mize succeeds brilliantly in making the technical terminology of oral-formulaic theory and metrical theory accessible and meaningful to readers who are unfamiliar with the critical conversations in these areas, and I admire the grace and crystalline clarity of his prose.”

Leslie Lockett, Department of English, The Ohio State University

“Traditional Subjectivities is a superb book, brilliantly conceived and executed. Until now, no one has approached the subject of ‘mentality’ in Old English poetry with the careful attention to its role in the most basic metrical structures of vernacular verse that it receives here, and the evidence that Britt Mize finds for a poetics of mentality hard-wired into classical Old English poetry is overwhelming. This is a book that will teach us all how to be better readers of Old English verse and why these poems matter.” Frederick Biggs, Department of English, University of Connecticut