This innovative and intriguing introduction to Old English literature is structured around what the author calls ‘figures’ from Anglo-Saxon culture: the Vow, the Hall, the Miracle, the Pulpit, and the Scholar.

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• An innovative and intriguing introduction to Old English literature.
  
• Structured around ‘figures’ from Anglo-Saxon culture: the Vow, the Hall, the Miracle, the Pulpit, and the Scholar.
  
• Situates Old English literary texts within a cultural framework.
  
• Creates new connections between different genres, periods and authors.
  
• Combines close textual analysis with historical context.
  
• Based on the author’s many years experience of teaching Old English literature.
  
• The author is co-editor with Seamus Heaney of Beowulf: A Verse Translation (2001) and recently published with Blackwell Lady Godiva: A Literary History of the Legend (2003).

Daniel Donoghue is the John P. Marquand Professor of English at Harvard University. He is the author of Lady Godiva: A Literary History of the Legend (2003), Style in Old English Poetry (1987) and is co-editor with Seamus Heaney of Beowulf: A Verse Translation (2001).