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Forum for Modern Language Studies Advance Access published online on May 31, 2009
Forum for Modern Language Studies, doi:10.1093/fmls/cqp043
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© The Author (2009). Published by Oxford University Press for the Court of the University of St Andrews. All rights reserved. The University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland: No. SC013532.

THE GRAMMAR OF PAIN IN ÆLFRIC BATA'S COLLOQUIES

Irina A. Dumitrescu

Department of English
Southern Methodist University
P. O. Box 750435
Dallas, TX 75275–0435
USA

idumitrescu{at}smu.edu

  Abstract

The eleventh-century Latin Colloquies of Ælfric Bata have received scant critical attention, much of it dismissive. Aside from Bata's faulty Latin, critics have worried about the violence and other irregularities depicted in the daily scenes of the dialogues, and he has generally been viewed as a rogue figure. I argue here that Bata's work exhibits an awareness of the nuances of authority in second-language teaching, its implications for the student, and the ways that a language of power can be manipulated and subverted. Bata's predecessor, Ælfric of Eynsham, suggests a productive relationship between pain and language teaching. Bata, however, shows boys using imagined pain and humour both to fix language in the memory and to create a space for themselves outside the authority of wisdom texts.

Key Words: Anglo-Saxon period • Ælfric Bata • Ælfric of Eynsham • language learning


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