Why is Old English poetry so preoccupied with mental actions and perspectives, giving readers access to minds of antagonists as freely as to those of protagonists? Why are characters sometimes called into being for no apparent reason other than to embody a psychological state? Britt Mize provides the first systematic investigation into these salient questions in Traditional Subjectivities.

Through close analysis of vernacular poems alongside the most informative analogues in Latin, Old English prose, and Old Saxon, this work establishes an evidence-based foundation for new...