Literary Appropriations of the Anglo-Saxons from the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century

This book, first published in 2000, discusses the attitudes towards Anglo-Saxons expressed by English poets, playwrights and novelists from the thirteenth century to the present day. The essays are arranged chronologically, tracing literary responses to the Anglo-Saxons in the medieval period, the Renaissance and also the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In earlier centuries the Ango-Saxons were often idealized representatives of happier times. Later, they became the epitome of a 'British' race, while an individual Anglo-Saxon, King Alfred, was inflated into a national hero. A final essay suggests the disappearance of any clear sense of the cultural roots of the English in the twentieth century. The contributors, who are specialists in their respective fields from Britain and the United States, draw on works that have frequently been ignored or overlooked. They address topical issues such as nationalism, cultural identity, myth, gender and contextualization.