English Research Seminar --- Thijs Porck (Leiden University) Old English is Dutch and Beowulf is ours! Appropriations of Early Medieval English in 19th-Century Europe

”In the 19th century, Old English poems were claimed as cultural heritage by various non-Anglophone nations, including Scandinavians, the Germans and the Dutch. These competing nationalist, cultural appropriations happened against the backdrop of a growing interest in early medieval English language and literature across the European continent. This lecture introduces the 19th-century European reception of Old English and zooms in on some of the earliest creative adaptations of the poem Beowulf, which appeared in Dutch.”

Thijs Porck is Senior Lecturer of Medieval English at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society. He is the author of Old Age in Early Medieval England (2019), co-editor of various books including Old English Medievalism (2022), and PI of the ERC project ‘Early Medieval English in Nineteenth-Century Europe [EMERGENCE]' (2024-2028); https://thijsporck.com/emergence/. He is the current President of the International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England (ISSEME).

If you'd like to come for dinner with the speaker after the paper, email Christine Rauer at [email protected]