CFP: Dynamics of Old English Scholarship in the Long Nineteenth Century – Discoveries, Disputes and the Development of a Discipline

Call for Contributions

Dynamics of Old English Scholarship in the Long Nineteenth Century:

Discoveries, Disputes and the Development of a Discipline

 ed. Rachel A. Fletcher, Ellen Gallimore & Thijs Porck

The long nineteenth century (1786–1914) was a dynamic and transformative period for the scholarly study of Old English. Marked by significant advances in editing, philology and textual recovery, the era witnessed the first printed edition of Beowulf (1815), Eduard Sievers’ foundational work on Old English metre and the discovery of major manuscripts and texts such as the Vercelli Book, the Épinal-Erfurt Glossary and the Brussels Cross. Newly-established scholarly journals provided a public venue for review and debate, including polemics over the influence of continental philology on the study of Old English in Britain. Ambitious large-scale editing initiatives like Christian Wilhelm Grein’s Bibliothek der Angelsächsischen Poesie made a broad range of Old English texts newly available. Student readers and grammars by such scholars as Henry Sweet and Julius Zupitza laid the groundworks for the academic teaching of the language and literature of early medieval England, which eventually got a foothold within university curricula. Networks of scholars, often spanning national boundaries, exchanged new ideas and shared novel findings through private correspondence. Both scholarly disputes and collaborative efforts were essential dynamics in shaping the emerging discipline of Old English studies.

The legacies of nineteenth-century scholarship remain deeply embedded in the study of Old English today. Modern titles for many iconic poems, such as The Wanderer, The Seafarer and The Wife’s Lament, were bestowed by nineteenth-century editors. Several standard editions still in use rely heavily on nineteenth-century foundations, while core lexicographical resources such as Bosworth and Toller’s An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, A Thesaurus of Old English and the Oxford English Dictionary have their roots in the philological practices of the period. Even the way Old English is taught at university level continues to reflect paradigms, reading lists and interpretive frameworks established in the nineteenth century. As a result, contemporary scholars must engage not only with early medieval language and literature itself, but also with the intellectual and ideological lenses through which nineteenth-century scholars recovered, edited and interpreted this material.

We hope to bring together a peer-reviewed edited volume with papers on various aspects of the scholarly study of Old English in the long nineteenth century, with an additional focus on European continental contributions in line with the ERC-project EMERGENCE (‘Early Medieval English in NineteenthCentury Europe’).  Proposals for chapter contributions of c. 8000 words are welcome from scholars from all academic backgrounds. First drafts full drafts are due at the end of September 2027.

Possible topics/themes include but are not limited to:                                                  

• Discoveries of Old English texts
• Disputes about linguistic or literary interpretations of Old English
• Developments in the discipline of Old English studies
• Personal, religious, political and ideological motivations for the study of Old English
• Biographical contributions about scholars of Old English
• Scholarly correspondence on Old English matters
• Editing and printing of Old English texts –     Teaching of Old English

Please send an abstract (500 words) and short bio (150 words) to Rachel A. Fletcher (r.a.fletcher@hum.leidenuniv.nl), Ellen Gallimore (ellen.gallimore@york.ac.uk) and Thijs Porck (m.h.porck@hum.leidenuniv.nl) before 1 September 2026.  

This edited volume will be part of the project ‘Early Medieval English in Nineteenth–Century Europe [EMERGENCE]’, a project that has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation program (EMERGENCE, Grant agreement No.101115867, https://doi.org/10.3030/101115867).