A work of fine and nuanced intelligence... Skilled and learned readings of a number of important texts. Fluent, polished, and beautifully written.' Dr Katy Cubitt, University of York. The formation and operation of systems of power and patronage in Anglo-Saxon England are currently the focus of concerted scholarly attention. This book explores how power is shaped and negotiated in later Anglo-Saxon texts, focusing in particular on how hierarchical, vertical structures are presented alongside patterns of reciprocity and economies of mutual obligation, especially within the context of patronage relationships (whether secular, spiritual, literal or symbolic). Through close analysis of a wide selection of sources in the vernacular and Latin (including the Guthlac poems of the Exeter Book, Old English verse epitaphs, the acrostic poetry of Abbo of Fleury, the Encomium Emmae Reginae and Libellus Æthelwoldi Episcopi), the study examines how texts sustain dual ways of seeing and understanding power, generating a range of imaginative possibilities along with tensions, ambiguities and instances of disguise or euphemism. It also advances new arguments about the ideology and rhetoric of power in the early medieval period. Catherine A. M. Clarke is Professor in English, University of Southampton.

A major, thoughtful study, applying new and serious interpretative and critical perspectives to a central range of Old English poetry.' Professor John Hines, Cardiff University. Cognitive approaches to literature offer new and exciting ways of interpreting literature and mentalities, by bringing ideas and methodologies from Cognitive Science into the analysis of literature and culture. While these approaches are of particular value in relation to understanding the texts of remote societies, they have to date made very little impact on Anglo-Saxon Studies. This book therefore acts as a pioneer, mapping out the new field, explaining its relevance to Old English Literary Studies, and demonstrating in practice its application to a range of key vernacular poetic texts, including 'Beowulf', 'The Wanderer', and poems from the Exeter Book. Adapting key ideas from three related fields - Cognitive Literary/Cultural Studies, Cognitive Poetics, and Conceptual Metaphor Theory - in conjunction with more familiar models, derived from Literary Analysis, Stylistics, and Historical Linguistics, allows several new ways of thinking about Old English literature to emerge. It permits a systematic means of examining and accounting for the conceptual structures that underpin Anglo-Saxon poetics, as well as fuller explorations, at the level of mental processing, of the workings of literary language in context. The result is a set of approaches to interpreting Anglo-Saxon textuality, through detailed studies of the concepts, mental schemas, and associative logic implied in and triggered by the evocative language and meaning structures of surviving works. Antonina Harbus is Professor in the Department of English at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.