Students Scholars And Saints

"Saints, Scholars, and Schizophrenics, in its original form--now integrally reproduced in the new edition--is a most important seminal study of an Irish community."—Conor Cruise O'Brien

Middle East officially Near East.

Wide-ranging survey of current research in Anglo-Saxon studies - from literature and material culture to religion and politics. Anglo-Saxon literature and culture, and their subsequent appropriations, unite the essays collected here. They offer fresh and exciting perspectives on a variety of issues, from gender to religion and the afterlives of Old Englishtexts, from reconsiderations of neglected works to reflections on the place of Anglo-Saxon in the classroom. As is appropriate, they draw especially on Hugh Magennis' own interests in hagiography and issues of community and reception. Taken together, they provide a "state of the discipline" account of the present, and future, of Anglo-Saxon studies. The volume also includes contributions from the leading Irish poets Ciaran Carson and Medbh McGuckian. Dr Stuart McWilliams is a Newby Trust Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh. Contributors: Ciaran Carson, Marilina Cesario, Mary Clayton, Ivan Herbison, Joyce Hill, Malcolm Godden, Chris Jones, Christina Lee, Medbh McGuckian, Stuart McWilliams, Juliet Mullins, Elisabeth Okasha, Jane Roberts, Donald Scragg, Mary Swan, John Thompson, Elaine Treharne, Robert Upchurch, Gordon Whatley, Jonathan Wilcox

Though the description Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum was not actually written down until the sixteenth century, Ireland's fame as the island of saints and scholars had then been established for more than six hundred years. That reputation was won mainly in what might otherwise have really been the Dark Ages. The Christian faith which had collapsed over most of Europe with the decline and fall of the western Roman empire still survived on the rocky fringes of the Atlantic seaboard. The 'pilgrims for Christ' as these Irish voyagers called themselves, spent the rest of their lives relighting a candle in the darkness and in spite of terrible deprivations, not least homesickness, re-establishing not only Christianity but the glories of classical learning which had fallen into their safe keeping. This book lists both saints and scholars (often in the same personality), their foundations and the works that made the period Ireland's truly golden age.