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Aelfric`s Life of Saint Basil the Great: Background and Context
Author(s): Gabriella Corona (Author)
- Publisher: D. S. Brewer
- Publication Date: 19 Oct. 2006
- Language: English
- Print length: 280 pages
- ISBN-10: 1843840952
- ISBN-13: 9781843840954
Book Description
Full study, with text and facing translation, of an influential tenth-century work. The life and thought of Saint Basil the Great [329-79] were a seminal influence on western theology and monasticism, their echoes reaching as far as Anglo-Saxon England: the hagiographic tradition of this saint began in Greek, butby the end of the tenth century had already been translated three times into Latin and once into Old English. This book presents a new edition and translation of the Old English text, prepared by Ælfric of Eynsham in the tenth century, with an edition of one of the Latin versions of the Vita Basilii. These are complemented by the first ever full-length study of the hagiographies of Basil, setting these textual traditions against their wider intellectual background. It outlines evidence for the cult of Saint Basil in Anglo-Saxon England from the late-seventh century, together with the influence of his theological thought, especially upon Bede’s work. It then moves on toexplore the Old English translation in detail, setting it in the context of the English Benedictine reform.
Editorial Reviews
Review
This is the kind of careful historical, textual and literary work that gives Anglo-Saxon scholarship a good name. — JOURNAL OF ENGLISH AND GERMANIC PHILOLOGY, October 2008
