Volume 138, Issue 2

The present study provides a full edition and commentary of the three glossaries in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Barlow 35, fol. 57r–v. These glossaries, which were first partly edited and discussed by Liebermann (1894), are comprised of excerpts from Ælfric’s Grammar and Glossary arranged by subject. The selection of material from the two Ælfrician works witnesses to the interests of the glossator. The first glossary in Barlow 35 collects Latin grammatical terms and verbs followed by their Old English equivalents. The second glossary is drawn from the chapter on plant names of Ælfric’s Glossary , with interpolations from other chapters of the same work. This glossary also features twelfth-century interlinear notations, which seem to have a metatextual function. The third glossary combines excerpts from Ælfric’s Glossary with verbs derived from the Grammar . Liebermann transcribed only part of the glosses and gave a brief commentary on the glossaries as well as parallels with Zupitza’s (1880) edition of Ælfric’s Grammar and Glossary ; hence the need for a new edition, which is provided in the present study, along with a comprehensive discussion of the glossaries and a reassessment of the correspondences concerning their Ælfrician sources.

The present essay discusses a diagram found in London, British Library, Cotton Titus D.xxvii+xxvi, the so-called Ælfwine’s Prayerbook . The diagram, which appears on fol. 21 v (see Figure 1), has been interpreted by most scholars as an incomplete tidal rota or an incomplete wind rota (as it contains only 4 out of the canonical 12 winds). A detailed, comparative analysis of the features of the diagram, however, proves that the hypothesis of the tidal rota must be discarded in favour of that of the wind diagram. Moreover, an analysis of the manuscript contents and of the way in which the manuscript was written reveals a close connection between the diagram and Ælfric’s De temporibus anni , showing that the diagram is complete in its present form, and was inspired by the Ælfrician text. My study shows that the rota constitutes an illustration to the discussion of the winds appearing in the De temporibus anni and, at the same time, a representation of the Cross and of the close connection between God and the natural world, perfectly integrated within Ælfwine’s interests and architectural plans, as well as within the “visual-exegetical method” (Kühnel 2003) of the period.

The sequence Oft daedlata domę foręldit (four words) in the Old English Proverb from Winfrid’s Time ( ProvW , 1) defies grammatical analysis because foręldit ‘delays’ requires an accusative object. It is proposed to read Oft daed lata domę foręldit as five words, with daed (= dǣd ) ‘deed’ functioning as direct object. This suggestion does not require any emendation because word division in Old English is by no means regular and there is some space between daed and lata in the manuscript anyway. The dative forms domę and gahwem (2a) function as instrumentals, with gahwem perhaps subordinated to domę . The meaning of the simplex lata lies in the area of ‘late-comer’, but ‘sluggard’, ‘laggard’ or other derogatory terms are not suitable. With regard to its genre, ProvW may be viewed in conjunction with Bede’s Death Song ( BDS ). The vocabulary of BDS presents some problems, but, above all, the construction of the five verse-lines is not totally clear. It is proposed that the comparative thoncsnotturra (2a) has absolute function, and that the adverbial than (2b), meaning ‘then’, introduces a fresh clause. ProvW and BDS may belong to a larger group of self-contained texts no longer extant. In a wide sense they represent the category of Wisdom Poetry in a Christian context.

The essay offers a close reading of On Earth We’re Briefly Georgeous , the remarkable novel by Vietnamese American writer Ocean Vuong, showing how the text’s critical engagement with the notion of the mother tongue is used to negotiate subjectivity and community in diasporic contexts. It assesses the importance of the tongue within the broader context of contemporary migrant and transcultural fiction and reveals how the tongue functions as a trope to explore possibilities of self-articulation after the loss of the mother tongue. Further, the essay draws on the concept of translation, exposing both its violent dimensions and its liberating potential within uneven intercultural relationships. Struggling with the unavailability of his mother tongue, Vuong’s central writer-protagonist performs multiple acts of translation between the unequal languages of Vietnamese and English and reconfigures both in terms of their foreignness. These acts of translation materialize in a multilingual poetics that thoroughly unsettles the priority of closed entities and that confronts the organic genealogy inscribed in the “family romance” (Yildiz 2012: 20) of the mother tongue with open, non-identitarian modes of sociality. I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for Anglia as well as Christina Slopek, Martin A. Kayman and Susan Winnett for generously sharing their thoughts on earlier versions of my article with me.