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Leonard Neidorf

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Leonard Neidorf
FRHistS
NationalityAmerican
Academic background
Alma mater
Academic work
DisciplinePhilology
Sub-discipline
Institutions
Main interestsOld English and Middle English literature
Notable worksThe Transmission of Beowulf: Language, Culture, and Scribal Behavior (2017)

Leonard Neidorf FRHistS (born c. 1988) is an American philologist who is Professor of English at Nanjing University. Neidorf specializes in the study of Old English and Middle English literature, and is a known authority on Beowulf.[1]

Biography

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Raised in Voorhees Township, New Jersey, Neidorf graduated from Eastern Regional High School in 2006.[2] He gained a BA, summa cum laude, in English from New York University in 2010, and a PhD in English from Harvard University in 2014.[3] Upon gaining his PhD, Neidorf became a member of the Harvard Society of Fellows (2014-2016). Admittance to the Harvard Society of Fellows is considered one of the greatest academic achievements possible in the United States.[2] Since 2016, Neidorf has been Professor of English at Nanjing University.[1] He is an Associate Editor of English Studies and the Editor-in-Chief of The Explicator.

Research

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Leonard Neidorf specializes in the study of Old English and Middle English literature. He is known as an authority on Beowulf. Neidorf is the author of The Art and Thought of the 'Beowulf'-Poet (2022) and The Transmission of 'Beowulf': Language, Culture, and Scribal Behavior (2017).[1] Neidorf is the editor of The Dating of 'Beowulf': A Reassessment (2014), which was awarded the Outstanding Academic Title by Choice in 2015, and co-editor (with Tom Shippey and Rafael J. Pascual) of Old English Philology: Studies in Honour of R. D. Fulk (2016). Neidorf maintains that Beowulf was probably composed by a single author in the late 7th or early 8th century AD.[4][5][6][7] For his research on Beowulf, Neidorf was awarded the Beatrice White Prize from the English Association in 2020.[8] In addition to Beowulf, Neidorf has published extensively on other major Old English poems, including Widsith,[9][10][11] Maxims,[12][13] the Finnesburg Fragment,[14][15] and The Dream of the Rood.[16][17][18][19] His research addresses questions of authorship, interpretation, literary history, and textual criticism. In addition to his traditional philological research, Neidorf has published several large-scale quantitative studies of the corpus of Old English poetry.[20][21][22]

Neidorf's studies of Beowulf situate the poem in a wide variety of contexts. He explicates its text in relation to Old Norse and Middle High German analogues,[23][24][25][26] medieval traditions concerning the monstrous progeny of Cain,[27] and early English history and culture.[28][29] In his studies of the Beowulf manuscript, Neidorf uses transcription errors in the transmitted text to extract information about the poem's textual history.[5][30] He argues that patterns of error in the extant manuscript indicate that the poem existed in written form before the middle of the eighth century. In the field of onomastics, Neidorf contends that names in Beowulf derive from earlier oral tradition and were not invented by the poet to reflect meaningfully on their bearers.[31][32][33][34][35] In the field of Old English meter, Neidorf defends the metrical theories of Eduard Sievers and Robert D. Fulk.[6][36] He argues for the utility of meter as a tool in the editing and dating of Old English poetry.[37] In his methodological writing, Neidorf draws on the epistemology of Karl Popper and argues for the importance of falsifiability and probabilism in literary studies.[38][4]

Neidorf collaborated with eminent medievalist Tom Shippey on 'Beowulf': Translation and Commentary (2023), which presents the original text of Beowulf along with a facing-page translation, an extensive commentary, supplementary essays, and a substantial bibliography. In his review on the back cover, Francis Leneghan of the University of Oxford described the collaborative volume as "the perfect book for the first-time reader of Beowulf and essential reading for all scholars."[39]

Selected works

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  • The Dating of Beowulf: A Reassessment, 2014[40]
  • Old English Philology: Studies in Honour of R.D. Fulk (with Rafael J. Pascual and Tom Shippey), 2016[40]
  • The Transmission of Beowulf: Language, Culture, and Scribal Behavior, 2017[40]
  • The Art and Thought of the Beowulf Poet, 2022[40]
  • Beowulf: Translation and Commentary (with Tom Shippey), 2023[40]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c "Leonard Neidorf". Harvard University. Retrieved August 27, 2020.
  2. ^ a b Krum, Logan (June 28, 2017). "From Eastern to Harvard to China". Sun Newspapers. Retrieved August 27, 2020.
  3. ^ "Prof. Leonard Neidorf" (PDF). Harvard University. Retrieved August 27, 2020.
  4. ^ a b Neidorf, Leonard (2015). "On Beowulf and Biology: Empirical Methodology in Humanistic Research". Harvard University. Retrieved August 27, 2020.
  5. ^ a b Neidorf, Leonard (2013). "Scribal errors of proper names in the Beowulf manuscript". Anglo-Saxon England. 42: 249–269. doi:10.1017/S0263675113000124. S2CID 161079836.
  6. ^ a b Neidorf, Leonard; Pascual, Rafael J. (2014). "The Language of Beowulf and the Conditioning of Kaluza's Law". Neophilologus. 98 (4): 657–673. doi:10.1007/s11061-014-9400-x. S2CID 159814058.
  7. ^ Neidorf, Leonard; Pascual, Rafael J. (2019). "Old Norse Influence on the Language of Beowulf: A Reassessment". Journal of Germanic Linguistics. 31 (3): 298–322. doi:10.1017/S1470542718000144. S2CID 201407742.
  8. ^ "2020 Beatrice White Prize winner announced". 28 January 2020.
  9. ^ Neidorf, Leonard (January 2013). "The Dating of Widsið and the Study of Germanic Antiquity". Neophilologus. 97 (1): 165–183. doi:10.1007/s11061-012-9308-2. S2CID 163940868.
  10. ^ "Leonard Neidorf".
  11. ^ Neidorf, Leonard (2 January 2022). "Woden and Widsith". English Studies. 103 (1): 1–18. doi:10.1080/0013838X.2021.2021675. S2CID 246432120.
  12. ^ Neidorf, Leonard (2 September 2019). "Maxims II , Line 10: Truth and Textual Criticism". Studia Neophilologica. 91 (3): 241–248. doi:10.1080/00393274.2019.1605495. S2CID 211645757.
  13. ^ Neidorf, Leonard (2016). "On the Dating and Authorship of Maxims I". Neuphilologische Mitteilungen. 117 (1): 137–154. JSTOR 26386191.
  14. ^ Neidorf, Leonard (1 December 2019). "Garulf and Guthlaf in the Finnsburg Fragment". Notes and Queries. 66 (4): 489–492. doi:10.1093/notesj/gjz114.
  15. ^ Neidorf, Leonard (2 January 2020). "The Finnsburg Fragment, Line 14: Language and Legend". The Explicator. 78 (1): 44–48. doi:10.1080/00144940.2020.1725408. S2CID 213494609.
  16. ^ Neidorf, Leonard (2016). "The composite authorship of The Dream of the Rood". Anglo-Saxon England. 45: 51–70. doi:10.1017/S0263675100080224. S2CID 165092889.
  17. ^ Neidorf, Leonard (17 June 2020). "Verbs and Versification in The Dream of the Rood". ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews. 35 (2): 94–97. doi:10.1080/0895769X.2020.1782723. S2CID 225731782.
  18. ^ Neidorf, Leonard; Xu, Na (2020). "The Textual Criticism of the Dream of the Rood". English Studies. 101 (5): 519–536. doi:10.1080/0013838X.2020.1820711. S2CID 222003457.
  19. ^ Neidorf, Leonard (2021). "Goths, Huns, and the Dream of the Rood". The Review of English Studies. 72 (307): 821–835. doi:10.1093/res/hgab022.
  20. ^ Neidorf, Leonard; Krieger, Madison S.; Yakubek, Michelle; Chaudhuri, Pramit; Dexter, Joseph P. (June 2019). "Large-scale quantitative profiling of the Old English verse tradition". Nature Human Behaviour. 3 (6): 560–567. doi:10.1038/s41562-019-0570-1. PMID 30962615. S2CID 102354307.
  21. ^ Neidorf, Leonard; Zhao, Yi; Yu, Jie (October 2019). "Line Length in Old English Poetry: A Chronological and Stylistic Criterion". Neophilologus. 103 (4): 561–575. doi:10.1007/s11061-019-09596-8. S2CID 166184147.
  22. ^ "Beowulf the work of single author, research suggests". TheGuardian.com. 8 April 2019.
  23. ^ Neidorf, Leonard (2018). "An Old Norse Analogue to Wiglaf's Lament (Beowulf Lines 3077–3086)". Neophilologus. 102 (4): 515–524. doi:10.1007/s11061-018-9570-z. S2CID 165913134.
  24. ^ Neidorf, Leonard (2020). "On Beowulf and the Nibelungenlied: Counselors, queens, and characterization". Neohelicon. 47 (2): 655–672. doi:10.1007/s11059-020-00541-2. S2CID 225573320.
  25. ^ Neidorf, Leonard (2023). "Hrothgar and Etzel: Beowulf Analogues in Middle High German Literature". English Studies. 104 (8): 1317–1332. doi:10.1080/0013838X.2023.2266223.
  26. ^ Neidorf, Leonard (2024). "Heremod and Óðinn: From Beowulf to Snorri's Prose Edda". Folklore. 135: 110–127. doi:10.1080/0015587X.2023.2252658.
  27. ^ Neidorf, Leonard (2015). "Cain, Cam, Jutes, Giants, and the Textual Criticism of "Beowulf"". Studies in Philology. 112 (4): 599–632. doi:10.1353/sip.2015.0025. JSTOR 43921862. S2CID 163129872.
  28. ^ Neidorf, Leonard (2018). "Beowulf as Pre-National Epic: Ethnocentrism in the Poem and its Criticism". ELH. 85 (4): 847–875. doi:10.1353/elh.2018.0031. S2CID 165792664.
  29. ^ Neidorf, Leonard (2019). "Beowulf and the Anglo-Saxon Postcolonial Imagination: Wine, Wealth, and Romanitas". Modern Philology. 117 (2): 149–162. doi:10.1086/705556. S2CID 211669728.
  30. ^ Neidorf, Leonard (2018). "The Archetype of Beowulf". English Studies. 99 (3): 229–242. doi:10.1080/0013838X.2018.1436284. S2CID 165998073.
  31. ^ Neidorf, Leonard (2018). "Wealhtheow and Her Name: Etymology, Characterization, and Textual Criticism". Neophilologus. 102: 75–89. doi:10.1007/s11061-017-9538-4. S2CID 165875310.
  32. ^ Neidorf, Leonard (2017). "Unferth's Ambiguity and the Trivialization of Germanic Legend". Neophilologus. 101 (3): 439–454. doi:10.1007/s11061-017-9523-y. S2CID 171577047.
  33. ^ Neidorf, L. (2013). "Beowulf before Beowulf: Anglo-Saxon Anthroponymy and Heroic Legend". The Review of English Studies. 64 (266): 553–573. doi:10.1093/res/hgs108.
  34. ^ Neidorf, Leonard; Zhu, Chenyun (March 2022). "The Germanic Onomasticon and the Etymology of Beowulf's Name". Neophilologus. 106 (1): 109–126. doi:10.1007/s11061-021-09703-8. S2CID 239950686.
  35. ^ Neidorf, Leonard; Zhu, Chenyun (15 August 2022). "Minor Germanic Deities and the Etymology of Beowulf's Name". ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews. 37 (2): 163–168. doi:10.1080/0895769X.2022.2103636. S2CID 251608554.
  36. ^ Neidorf, Leonard; Pascual, Rafael J. (2020). "Nicolay Yakovlev's Theory of Old English Meter: A Reassessment". Neophilologus. 104 (2): 245–253. doi:10.1007/s11061-019-09624-7. S2CID 211668069.
  37. ^ Neidorf, Leonard (2016). "Metrical Criteria for the Emendation of Old English Poetic Texts". Old English Philology. Boydell & Brewer. pp. 52–68. ISBN 9781843844389. JSTOR 10.7722/j.ctt1c3gxtd.9.
  38. ^ Neidorf, Leonard (2015). "On the Epistemology of Old English Scholarship". Neophilologus. 99 (4): 631–646. doi:10.1007/s11061-015-9430-z. S2CID 145802082.
  39. ^ "Uppsala Books".
  40. ^ a b c d e "Publications". Harvard University. Retrieved August 27, 2020.
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