The hagiography of chaste marriage in AElfric's "Lives of Saints"
Item
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Title
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The hagiography of chaste marriage in AElfric's "Lives of Saints"
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Identifier
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AAI3024841
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identifier
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3024841
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Creator
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Upchurch, Robert Kimmons.
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Contributor
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Adviser: E. Gordon Whatley
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Date
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2001
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, Medieval | Literature, English
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Abstract
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This study undertakes to suggest why the monk, AElfric found particular relevance in hagiographical acts of marital virginity for his patron, the pious Anglo-Saxon warlord AEthelweard, his son AEthelmaer, and a wider circle of like-minded lay readers. Attention is given to three legends of virgin spouses that AElfric includes in the Lives of Saints, the collection of hagiographical and homiletic pieces that he composed late in the last decade of the tenth century at AEthelweard's request. One approach to understanding the mind-set with which he read and selected for the Lives the stories of Julian and Basilissa, Cecilia and Valerian, and Chrysanthus and Daria, and the point where the dissertation begins, is by surveying his pastoral advice on lay virginity found in his Catholic Homilies, two series of forty sermons published prior to the Lives. Chapters two through four build on this context to suggest that he found these legends useful vehicles for reinforcing the ideology of virginity articulated in his sermons. Each of these chapters examines an individual legend and contains a brief history of its use in Anglo-Saxon England as a prelude to a close reading of AElfric's version. In order for the reader to have the fullest understanding of his editorial processes, chapter 5 contains transcriptions of three previously unpublished Latin passiones from the Cotton-Corpus legendary, which has been identified as AElfric's putative Latin source. Paragraphs in the Latin texts are keyed to the corresponding lines in AElfric's versions, and the sentences that he either translated verbatim or paraphrased have been italicized to facilitate comparisons of the Latin and Old English saints' lives.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
