Antonina Harbus

Reading Embodied Consciousness in Emma

The language of Emma (1815) reflects Jane Austens developing view of embodied consciousness and her particular interest in this novel in the physical manifestations of emotions, such as blushes and nervous responses. The discursive exploration of the inner life in Emma is the product of a cultural context that features emerging brain science and Austens own conceptualization of the psychophysical nature of emotions. This article analyzes the language of mind and emotion in Emma, to contend that Austen grapples with the implications of the idea of embodied consciousness in a narrative that contrasts mind reading with interpreting the body.

Exposure to life-writing as an impact on autobiographical memory

This article combines narrative and genre theory with recent studies of memory processing and reporting to propose that contact with published biography and autobiography, both direct and indirect, has an influence on autobiographical narrative, memory and self-formation. Exposure to durable and pervasive modes of life-writing, transmitted culturally, provides frameworks for meaning-making that normalize certain narrative structures and shape the content and organization of autobiographical memory. This article traces the transfer of conventions found in life-writing genres in recently reported autobiographical memory studies, to argue that further consideration should be given in empirical research contexts to the impact of cultural and educational factors on memory.

Written autobiography as a source of influence on autobiographical memory

This article uses narrative and genre theory to argue that both direct and indirect contact with published autobiography has an influence on autobiographical narrative, memory, and self formation. Exposure to the durable and pervasive modes of life-writing, transmitted culturally, provides frameworks for meaning-making that normalise certain narrative structures and shape the content and organisation of autobiographical memory. This paper traces the transfer of conventions found in life-writing genres in recently reported autobiographical memory studies, to argue that further consideration should be given to the impact of cultural and educational factors on memory.

Verbal Encounters: Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse Studies for Roberta Frank

Introduction Roberta Frank Biography, 1970-2003 Part I - On Words 1. Early Medieval Chaos, Christopher A. Jones 2. Composing and Joining: How the Anglo-Saxons Talked About Compounding, Don Chapman 3. Cennan, to Cause to be Born/To Cause to Know:Incarnation as Revelation on Old English Literature, Pauline Head 4. Pride, Courage, and Anger: The Polysemousness of Old English Mod, Vicki Low Part II - On Latin and Old English Prose 5. Desipere in loco: Style, Memory, and the Teachable Moment, Carin Ruff 6. Courtroom Drama and the Homiletic monologues of The Vercelli Book, Dorothy Haines Part III - On Old English Poetry 7. Him paes Grim lean Becom: The theme of Infertility in Genesis A, Karin Olsen 8. Odd Characters: Runes in Old English Poetry, Robert DiNapoli 9. Articulate Contact in Juliana, Antonina Harbus Part IV - On Beowulf 10. The Education of Beowulf and the Affair of the Leisure Class, Haruko Momma 11. Beowulfs Dark Thoughts: Beowulf in a Wisdom Context, Ruth Wehlau Part V - On Old Norse Literature 12. The Refracted Beam: Einarr Skulasons Liturgical Theology, Martin Chase 13. Beardless Wonders: Gaman vas Soxu: The Sex was Great, Oren Falk 14. Prophetic Dreams and Visions in the Sagas of the Early Icelandic Saints, Bernadine McCreesch 15. Claiming Kin Skaldic-Style, Russell Poole

The situation of wisdom in Solomon and Saturn II

Despite the inherent interpretive difficulties of Solomon and Saturn II , most readers concur that one ostensible theme of this Old English debate poem is the acquisition and application of wisdom. 1 But the definition of wisdom and the ideal manner of its attainment and practical use urged by the speakers are not well understood by scholars, even in the context of our understanding of other Old English wisdom poetry. 2 The fragmentary state of the extant copy of the poem, 3 in conjunction with the presence of some unusual vocabulary and disputed manuscript readings, further frustrates attempts to comprehend an already difficult text. It is worthwhile to examine closely the language of wisdom and the enunciation of its mental context inSolomon and Saturn II , especially the rare and poetic terminology, as these verbal choices hold valuable clues as to how key ideas were conceptualised by the poet. In particular, the diction of this poem appears emphatically to locate wisdom within the mind of the human subject, and figuratively to situate an active engagement with wisdom in the course of a successful life. Understanding the particularly nuanced language of mind-based wisdom, then, may shed some light on this enigmatic text. In order to explore the construction of wisdom within the poem from a linguistic viewpoint, the following discussion will focus on those compound terms which have connotations of both mind and wisdom ( mōdglēaw, l. 180a;wı -ssefa, l. 440a) and to a lesser extent those which contain one or other idea ( brēosttoga, l. 184a;mōdsefa, ll. 241a, 392a;ðrēamedla,242a, 430a; andormōd, l. 351a). 4

Cognitive Studies of Anglo-Saxon Mentalities

The new ways of thinking about literature offered by Cognitive Literary Studies and Cognitive Poetics offer detailed means of understanding pre-modern mentalities and fresh perspectives on the literary products of remote cultures. When applied to Anglo-Saxon literature, these methodologies, which bring cognitive science and linguistics to bear on literary studies, focus on the psychology of interpretation and seek to discover the mental causes of the rhetorical effects in literature. They base literary study on an understanding of mental processing, and inform analyses of literary structures with knowledge of mental schemas. A better understanding of the landscape and significance of literary mentalities can only enhance our grasp on both the artistry and logistics of literary meaning.

Interpreting The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale in a Contemporary Note to Thynne's 1532 Edition

For scholars interested in the reception of Chaucer’s texts, reactions written by early individual readers are both rare and informative. An intriguing reader’s comment is transcribed into a copy of William Thynne’s 1532 edition of Chaucer’s collected Works,1 which is now held by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University in the James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection (Osborn fpa 5).2 At the end of The Canterbury Tales, an anonymous reader, probably nearly contemporary with this edition,3 has written:

Expressing love in English and Russian : common and language-specific features

This paper documents cross-cultural similarities and variations in meaning shifts and polysemy extensions of the English noun love, the cognate verb to love, and their Russian equivalents throughout the period between the eleventh century and the present day. In both languages the words love and to love also refer, beside the central contemporary connotations around strong affection, to other emotions and feelings, in addition to behavioural responses associated with love. Regardless of some differences, the English love and to love, and the Russian ljubov and ljubit, generally signify similar emotions, feelings, and behavioural responses, because similar factors influenced their range. The study illustrates how polysemy and meaning shifts can be a source of the understanding of the way the idea love is conceptualized and expressed in different languages.

Medieval English Texts and Affects: Narratives as Tools for Feeling

It is still open to speculation how culturally specific affect is, how it is represented in literary and other texts, and how textual encounters can invite affective responses beyond those elicited from their immediate readers. This chapter considers these questions with specific reference to a selection of key medieval English texts (the Old English epic poem, Beowulf , as well as the elegiac poems, The Wanderer and The Wife’s Lament , and the Middle English texts Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and the anonymous Sir Gawain and The Green Knight ). It combines linguistic and literary analyses with ideas from the history the emotions to gain further insight into medieval apprehensions and poetic expressions of affect.

A cognitive approach to alliteration and conceptualization in medieval English literature

This article investigates alliteration in Old and Middle English poetry as a particular type of discourse-structuring device. It explores the use of this device in the context of a mainly anonymous and oral-formulaic tradition, and – in Construction Grammar terms – as a type of fragment chunker for both local conceptualization at the phrasal level and also one that permits (even encourages) a counterpoint conceptualization across syntactic structures, with an impact on literary meaning. The discussion will encompass the metrical aspects of this device, its role in the proliferation of poetic-only terms for key concepts that recur in extant verse texts, and implications for our understanding of medieval mental grammars.