Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T17:57:51.215Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

This, that and the other: locating the supernatural enemy in Old English1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2015

ADAM MEARNS
ADAM MEARNS*
Affiliation:
School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, Percy Building, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UKadam.mearns@ncl.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores the concept of the supernatural and the characterization of monsters and devils in Old English (OE), using the framework of a prototype model of semantic structure. Although there is a lexical gap, with no OE word equivalent to Present-Day English supernatural, it is possible to identify a set of semantic traits that constitute a covert conceptual category similar to the modern concept and encompassing Anglo-Saxon monsters and devils. The essence of this category is ‘exclusion’. The difference between the modern and medieval concepts is that, for the Anglo-Saxons, the boundary of the supernatural was conceptually much ‘closer’ and conceived in less abstract terms, corresponding to the frontier between the civilized space of society and the unruly alien space beyond. Similarities in the words applied to them reflect the fact that supernatural beings shared this alien space with other more mundane outsiders, such as foreigners and criminals. As its most extraordinary members, however, Anglo-Saxon monsters and devils played an important role in delineating the boundaries of society by acting as a challenge or counterexample to the principles of proper behaviour and accepted beliefs from which that civilized space was constructed and therefore supporting the normative function of the Anglo-Saxons’ ‘sense of place’ in the terms of Convery et al. (2012).

Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 19 , Special Issue 2: Sense of place in the history of English , July 2015 , pp. 213 - 226
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

I would like to thank the editors and two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments on the first draft of this paper.

References

Bosworth, Joseph & Toller, T. Northcote. 1898 (reprinted 1976). An Anglo-Saxon dictionary: Based on the manuscript collections of the late Joseph Bosworth, edited and enlarged by T. Northcote Toller; and T. Northcote Toller & Alistair Campbell. 1921 (reprinted 1973). An Anglo-Saxon dictionary: Supplement, with revised and enlarged addenda by Alistair Campbell. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cameron, Kenneth. 1959. The place-names of Derbyshire, 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. 1996. Monster culture (seven theses). In Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome (ed.), Monster theory, 3–25. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. 1999. Of giants: Sex, monsters, and the Middle Ages. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Convery, Ian, Corsane, Gerard & Davis, Peter. 2012. Introduction: Making sense of place. In Convery, Ian, Corsane, Gerard & Davis, Peter (eds.), Making sense of place: Multidisciplinary perspectives, 1–8. Woodbridge: Boydell Press.Google Scholar
Cruse, D. A. 1986. Lexical semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources (ed. Latham, Ronald E., Howlett, David R. & Ashdowne, Richard K.). 1975–2013. Oxford: British Academy.Google Scholar
Dictionary of Old English: A to G online (ed. Healey, Antonette diPaolo). 2007. Toronto: University of Toronto. http://doe.utoronto.ca/pages/pub/fasc-a-g-web.html (21 February 2015).Google Scholar
Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus (compiled by Antonette diPaolo Healey, with John Price Wilkin & Xin Xiang). 2009. Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project. www.doe.utoronto.ca (11 December 2014).Google Scholar
Fischer, Andreas. 2000. Lexical gaps, cognition and linguistic change. In Coleman, Julie & Kay, Christian J. (eds.), Lexicology, semantics and lexicography: Selected papers from the fourth G.L. Brook symposium, Manchester, August 1998, 1–18. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Friedman, John Block. 2000. The monstrous races in medieval art and thought. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press (originally published 1981, Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Fulk, R. D., Bjork, Robert E. & Niles, John D. (eds.). 2008. Klaeber's Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, 4th edition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Geeraerts, Dirk. 1997. Diachronic prototype semantics (Oxford Studies in Lexicography and Lexicology). Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geeraerts, Dirk. 2006. Prototype theory: Prospects and problems of prototype theory. In Geeraerts, Dirk (ed.), Cognitive linguistics: Basic readings, 141–65. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geeraerts, Dirk. 2010. Theories of lexical semantics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
The Historical Thesaurus of English, version 4.0. 2014. Glasgow: University of Glasgow. http://historicalthesaurus.arts.gla.ac.uk (11 December 2014).Google Scholar
Keesing, Roger M. & Strathern, Andrew J.. 1998. Cultural anthropology: A contemporary perspective, 3rd edition. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace.Google Scholar
Kordecki, Lesley C. 1980. Traditions and developments of the medieval English dragon. PhD dissertation, University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Lapidge, Michael. 1982. Beowulf, Aldhelm, the Liber Monstrorum and Wessex. Studi Medievali 23, 151–92.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, fire and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1969. The elementary structures of kinship (Les structures élémentaires de la parenté), 2nd edition, Bell, James Harle & von Sturmer, John Richard (trans.), Needham, Roger (ed.). London: Eyre & Spottiswoode.Google Scholar
Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, Barbara. 2007. Polysemy, prototypes and radial categories. In Geeraerts, Dirk & Cuyckens, Hubert (eds.), The Oxford handbook of cognitive linguistics, 139–69. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mearns, Adam. 2003a/b. The lexical representation of monsters and devils in Old English literature, 2 vols. PhD dissertation, Newcastle University.Google Scholar
Muir, Bernard J. (ed.). 2000. The Exeter anthology of Old English poetry: An edition of Exeter Dean and Chapter, ms. 3501, 2nd edition, 2 vols. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.Google Scholar
Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, 20 vols. 1989 (ed. Simpson, J. A. & Weiner, E. S. C.). Oxford: Oxford University Press; and 3rd edition (in progress). 2000–(ed. Simpson, J. A.). OED Online. www.oed.com (11 December 2014).Google Scholar
Orchard, Andy. 2003. Pride and prodigies: Studies in the monsters of the Beowulf-manuscript, revised edition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rackham, Harris (ed. & trans.). 1942. Pliny: Natural history, vol. 2 (books 3–7) (Loeb Classical Library, no. 352). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rosch, Eleanor. 1975. Cognitive representations of semantic categories. Journal of Experimental Psychology 104, 192–233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosch, Eleanor. 1978. Principles of categorization. In Rosch, Eleanor & Lloyd, Barbara B. (eds.), Cognition and categorization, 27–48. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Sanford, Eva M. & Green, William M. (eds. & trans.). 1965. Saint Augustine: The city of God against the pagans, vol. 5 (books 16–18.35) (Loeb Classical Library, no. 415). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Albert H. 1961–63. The place-names of the West Riding of Yorkshire, 8 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, John R. 2003. Linguistic categorization, 3rd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, David. 1996. Deformed discourse: The function of the monster in mediaeval thought and literature. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar