Miguel Gomes's new translation of the Old English elegies has just been published. The poems, written down by an unknown scribe in the 10th century, present a world of lords, warriors, and icy Northern waters ringing with the cries of seabirds. These elegies are major works of world literature which challenge the Renaissance myth that the period following the fall of Rome was a cultural void. Miguel's translation is accompanied by an extensive study of the poems, which places them at the crossroads of the Germanic heroic world and the millenarian anxieties of medieval Christianity.
