Humour is rarely seen to raise its indecorous head in the surviving corpus of Old English literature, yet the value of reading that literature with an eye to hu

Humour in Old English Literature deploys modern theories of humour to explore the style and content of surviving writing from early medieval England. The book a

This collection demonstrates the usefulness of approaching texts—verbal, visual and aural—through a framework of humour. Contributors offer in-depth discuss

This book makes important contributions to the theory of humour and to our understanding of Old English literature by striking a subtle balance between hostile

Anglo-Saxons valued education yet understood how precarious it could be, alternately bolstered and undermined by fear, desire, and memory. They praised their te