Prof. J. Schrunk Ericksen
Office: Humanities 104, 589-6251
e-mail: ericksja@umn.edu
Office hours: Th 9-11, other times by appt.
| Course Description
English 4004 is an introduction to the language, literature, and culture of the Anglo-Saxons. Old English, the language of England from roughly 500 to 1100, is the ancestor of Modern English—we still use many Old English words—but English has changed enough in the past 1000 years that Old English must be learned as a slightly familiar foreign language; there is enough similarity to Modern English that a reading knowledge of OE can be learned fairly quickly. Among medieval vernaculars Old English is unusually rich in surviving texts, with about 30,000 surviving lines of verse and about ten times as much prose. This course will give you the skill and, I hope, the interest to read much of this literature in its original language. The first section of the course will be devoted to learning the basic structure of Old English. We will spend part of each class on translation and, especially after the midterm, part on discussion of text and contexts. |
Development of this course was supported by a JSTOR Faculty/Instructional Librarian Partnership Grant
These pages were designed by Janet Schrunk Ericksen ericksja@umn.edu and Matt Conner connerm@umn.edu