Apr. 8th, 2008

tree_and_leaf: Photo of opening of Beowulf manuscript (Hwaet Beowulf)
The Eagle

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

***

As I remember Michael Alexander pointing out, there's something slightly Anglo-Saxon about that, not merely that the first line is a perfect example of Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse, but also that its most obvious literary ancestry is directly from the riddles of the Exeter Book and similar. I actually translated this into Old English when I was revising for finals, which goes to show what finals does to you.

***

Slept very badly, and also forgot that if you're going to use your computer as an alarm, you need to de-mute it. For some reason was obsessing over the thought that I'd rather stay in Freiburg than go back to Oxford, though this is not realistic, and I've still got over four months left here (though that's not really all that long, when you get down to it).
tree_and_leaf: JRR Tolkien at desk, smoking pipe, caption Master of Middle Earth (tolkien)
Must go and read this, perhaps tomorrow: Fabula 48 (2007), vol 3/4, Jeroen de Kloet, Giselinde Kuipers: Spirituality and Fan Culture around the Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy. it has nothing to do with work, but since when did that matter?

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tree_and_leaf: Watercolour of barn owl perched on post. (Default)
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