Finally, Some Answers: Lexomic Beowulf

For four years, Wheaton’s Lexomics Research Group has been using and inventing new methods of digital analysis to try to understand the greatest Old English poem, Beowulf. This summer we were able to uncover remarkable new evidence about the complex textual and transmission history of the poem by combining Lexomic methods with traditional approaches. We now know how its author put Beowulf together, where he drew upon sources, and which of these sources were written or oral, Old English or Latin, thus uncovering a lost history of textual production in the earliest centuries of English literary history. In this talk, Professor Drout will discuss the way we created this “textual x-ray”, how we finally came to understand what the evidence was telling us, and the implications of this success for future literary study.

All are welcome to attend the next Faculty Lunch Talk, presented by Michael Drout, Professor of English.

Date: Thursday, November 12, 2015
Time: 12:30 – 1:30 pm
Location: Chase Small 

 

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