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This, that and the other: locating the supernatural enemy in Old English1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2015

ADAM MEARNS
ADAM MEARNS*
Affiliation:
School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, Percy Building, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, [email protected]
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Abstract

This article explores the concept of the supernatural and the characterization of monsters and devils in Old English (OE), using the framework of a prototype model of semantic structure. Although there is a lexical gap, with no OE word equivalent to Present-Day English supernatural, it is possible to identify a set of semantic traits that constitute a covert conceptual category similar to the modern concept and encompassing Anglo-Saxon monsters and devils. The essence of this category is ‘exclusion’. The difference between the modern and medieval concepts is that, for the Anglo-Saxons, the boundary of the supernatural was conceptually much ‘closer’ and conceived in less abstract terms, corresponding to the frontier between the civilized space of society and the unruly alien space beyond. Similarities in the words applied to them reflect the fact that supernatural beings shared this alien space with other more mundane outsiders, such as foreigners and criminals. As its most extraordinary members, however, Anglo-Saxon monsters and devils played an important role in delineating the boundaries of society by acting as a challenge or counterexample to the principles of proper behaviour and accepted beliefs from which that civilized space was constructed and therefore supporting the normative function of the Anglo-Saxons’ ‘sense of place’ in the terms of Convery et al. (2012).

Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 19 , Special Issue 2: Sense of place in the history of English , July 2015 , pp. 213 - 226
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

1

I would like to thank the editors and two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments on the first draft of this paper.

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