Anglo-Saxon Mentalities and Old English Literary Studies

Abstract

This article reviews scholarship to date and traces developing trends in the investigation of Anglo-Saxon mentalities: concepts of the mind and the textual representation of the mind, the self, and consciousness. The multidisciplinary nature of the topic and recent studies are considered, along with an exciting new development in the academy, Cognitive Literary Studies, where cognitive science is brought to bear on literary analysis. This method of investigation factors not only cultural practices but also innate mental structures into representations of the mind. The future of Old English literary studies relies on combining current scholarly modes, such as interpretive, philological, and source studies, with emerging developments outside the field and even beyond the humanities.