25th Annual Student Research Conference
"Giants' Work": Interpreting The Ruin
Deanna M. Leiber
Dr. Christine Harker, Faculty Mentor
The Ruin, an Old English poem dated to the eighth century AD, has long held the interest of literary scholars, who often interpret the poem's ambiguities and recurring description of unnamed ruins, as a sort of elegiac riddle; they see The Ruin as a challenge to decipher exactly which ruins the poet describes. By examining the content, language, and layout of The Ruin, this paper argues that the identification of the ruins was not the poet's intent. Instead, the poet of The Ruin pondered the causes and effects of the fall of the Roman civilization which left behind such ruins and the similarly inevitable fall of his own Anglo-Saxon England.
Keywords: Old English, Anglo-Saxon England, British Literature, poetry
Topic(s):English
Medieval Studies
Linguistics
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 408-3
Location: VH 1408
Time: 3:00