'Identity through talk' : personal narrative and social practice in Anglo-Saxon literature

Abstract

This study is an analysis of a selection of first-person literary narratives written in pre- Conquest England. Primary texts have been chosen from the corpus of Old English poetry and Anglo-Latin colloquy tradition, with secondary, supporting texts drawn from Old English prose and Old Norse literature. Texts have been arranged by genre and in a series of separate discussions several groups have been examined for evidence of Anglo-Saxon attitudes to the issue of personal identity. The theoretical background for this study arises from several different disciplines: literary criticism, autobiographical theory, narrative psychology, social constructionism, ethnography, social anthropology.