NŌN AND TĪD: COMPUTUS CALCULATIONS AND ANCESTRAL TIME IN BEOWULF.
The early medieval English computus--or science of the calendar--and its impact on early English perceptions of time offer a new context for the study of Beowulf. This context brings new ideas to bear on the epic poem, which, though it concerns Scandinavians from the Migration Age, is presented by a...
| Published in: | Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval & Renaissance Studies Vol. 52; pp. 1 - 29 |
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| Format: | Article |
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University of California at Los Angeles, Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies
2021
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=155164938&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 155164938 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00696412 TIY jtl: Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval & Renaissance Studies issn: 00696412 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: 2021 vid: 52 pid: 20754 pub: University of California at Los Angeles, Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies artinfo: ui: 155164938 10.1353/cjm.2021.0000 ppf: 1 ppct: 28 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 5.2MB tig: atl: NŌN AND TĪD: COMPUTUS CALCULATIONS AND ANCESTRAL TIME IN BEOWULF. aug: au: Blanquer, Joana affil: School of English, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, College Green, Dublin 2, Dublin, Ireland su: Beowulf Calendar Liturgies Epic poetry Scandinavians sug: subj: Beowulf Calendar Liturgies Epic poetry Scandinavians keyword: computus early medieval English liturgy science ab: The early medieval English computus--or science of the calendar--and its impact on early English perceptions of time offer a new context for the study of Beowulf. This context brings new ideas to bear on the epic poem, which, though it concerns Scandinavians from the Migration Age, is presented by a Christian narrator to an early medieval, English, Christianized audience. The vocabulary of hours and timekeeping in the poem communicates an antiquarian perception of time for an early medieval English audience. The nouns for small units of time, such as the flexible hours of tīd and the monastic hours of nōn (nones) and ūhta (matins, dawn), are in a dialectic relationship that does not contradict the paganism of the characters but provides the poem with a liturgical backdrop. Outside of Beowulf, nōn can only be found in liturgical texts and ūhta occurs only once in nonreligious poetry. Both nouns give a hagiographical resonance to the monster-fighting. Tīd, however, is attached to meaningful moments rather than hours of a fixed arithmetical duration. This is symptomatic of the complementarity in early medieval England between mathematical and observational time perceptions. In Beowulf, both time perceptions are tied to ideological and theological overtones. Nōn represents learned time reckoning, embodied by the Church computus, and tīd represents experiential time, based on Germanic empirical observation. While the narrator announces a Germanic, empirical sense of time in the opening of the poem, there are subtextual allusions to the perception of time as mathematical and bound to the disciplines of the quadrivium. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval & Renaissance Studies is the property of University of California at Los Angeles, Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval & Renaissance Studies holder: University of California at Los Angeles, Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies dt: @attributes: year: 2021 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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