enta geweorc: l'opera dei giganti nella poesia anglosassone

In Old English poetry there is a significant and long-standing presence of features such as the use of long alliterative lines, a distinctively poetic vocabulary, formulaic expressions, variations and kenningar which testify to the existence of an older poetic tradition that flexibly adapts to various contexts and themes. From this perspective, the paper aims to examine how the formula enta geweorc is used in poems that differ in many ways, from their length to the topics they cover, to the ways they receive and re-elaborate sources or even mere influences or suggestions from the Latin Christian tradition. Every passage where enta geweorc is attested is considered in its specific context, revealing an articulated semantic stratification and an articulated network of intra- and intertextual references.