Insults, violence, and the meaning of lytegian in the Old English Battle of Maldon

Valentine A. Pakis | University of Minnesota — Minneapolis

The history of impoliteness — of which insults are a part — and violence are intertwined. In medieval Germanic cultural history, this link manifests itself in historical-pragmatic contexts such as sennur, whettings, and flyting-to-fighting scenarios, which are surveyed in this paper. The ethological origins of such interactions are called into question with reference to the Freudian death drive. Based on the connection between insults and violence, a novel definition of Old English lytegian in the Battle of Maldon is offered, namely ‘jeer, insult’, with comparative support from Icelandic.

Keywords: honor, insults, medieval Germanic literature, etymology, Battle of Maldon

Published online: 07 June 2011
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.12.1-2.09pak

Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Bryan, Eric Shane

2013. Indirect Aggression: A Pragmatic Analysis of the Quarrel of the Queens in Völsungasaga, Þiðreks Saga, and Das Nibelungenlied. Neophilologus 97:2 ► pp. 349 ff.

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