The Review of English Studies Advance Access originally published online on June 16, 2008
The Review of English Studies 2009 60(243):1-33; doi:10.1093/res/hgn073
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press 2008; all rights reserved
The Taunton Fragment and the Homiliary of Angers: Context for New Old English
University of Bergen
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Abstract |
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The recent discovery and subsequent publication of the Taunton fragment has offered Anglo-Saxonists a rare opportunity to examine a new Old English text. Indeed, the form of the work, which represents a set of homilies in alternating English and Latin, is unique among early English material. However, the initial publication of the fragment did not identify the Latin work therein, thereby prohibiting a more contextualised assessment of the fragment and its language. This article examines the Taunton fragment as a copy of the Homiliary of Angers, the Latin work from which the Taunton text derives. In examining the Latin background to the bilingual homiliary and subsequently elucidating discrepancies within the Taunton text itself, this article offers not only an alternative reconstruction of the codicological context for the fragment, but also challenges the hypothesis put forward by the editor, namely that the fragment accurately represents the language of a supposedly foreign commentator composing Old English.