Leonard Neidorf (born ) is an American

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

who is Professor of

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

Nanjing University Nanjing University (NJU; ) is a national public research university in Nanjing, Jiangsu. It is a member of C9 League and a Class A Double First Class University designated by the Chinese central government. NJU has two main campuses: the Xian ...

. Neidorf specializes in the study of

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

and

Middle English literature The term Middle English literature refers to the literature written in the form of the English language known as Middle English, from the late 12th century until the 1470s. During this time the Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English b ...

, and is a known authority on '' Beowulf''.

Biography

Raised in

Voorhees Township, New Jersey Voorhees Township is a township in Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 U.S. census, the township's population was 29,131, reflecting an increase of 1,005 (+3.6%) from the 28,126 counted in the 2000 census. Voorhee ...

, Neidorf graduated from

Eastern Regional High School Eastern Regional High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school for students in ninth through twelfth grades from Berlin Borough, Gibbsboro and Voorhees Township, three communities in Camden County, New Jersey, United States, o ...

in 2006. He gained a BA, summa cum laude, in

from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

in 2010, and a PhD in English from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

in 2014. Upon gaining his PhD, Neidorf became a member of the

Harvard Society of Fellows The Society of Fellows is a group of scholars selected at the beginnings of their careers by Harvard University for their potential to advance academic wisdom, upon whom are bestowed distinctive opportunities to foster their individual and intell ...

(2014-2016). Admittance to the Harvard Society of Fellows is considered one of the greatest academic achievements possible in the United States. Since 2016, Neidorf has been Professor of English at

Research

Leonard Neidorf specializes in the study of

and

. 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). Neidorf is the editor of ''The Dating of Beowulf: A Reassessment'' (2014), which was awarded the

Outstanding Academic Title Choice is a publishing unit of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). It includes the magazine ''Choice'' as well as other products including the ''Choice Reviews'' database. The magazine was established in 1964. It is cons ...

Choice A choice is the range of different things from which a being can choose. The arrival at a choice may incorporate motivators and models. For example, a traveler might choose a route for a journey based on the preference of arriving at a give ...

in 2015, and co-editor (with

Tom Shippey Thomas Alan Shippey (born 9 September 1943) is a British medievalist, a retired scholar of Middle and Old English literature as well as of modern fantasy and science fiction. He is considered one of the world's leading academic experts on the ...

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. For his research on ''Beowulf'', Neidorf was awarded the Beatrice White Prize from the

English Association The English Association is a subject association for English dedicated to furthering the study and enjoyment of English language and literature in schools, higher education institutes and amongst the public in general. It was founded in 1906 by ...

in 2020. In addition to ''Beowulf'', Neidorf has published extensively on other major Old English poems, including

Widsith "Widsith" ( ang, Wīdsīþ, "far-traveller", lit. "wide-journey"), also known as "The Traveller's Song", is an Old English poem of 143 lines. It survives only in the ''Exeter Book'', a manuscript of Old English poetry compiled in the late-10th c ...

, Maxims, the

Finnesburg Fragment The "Finnesburg Fragment" (also "Finnsburh Fragment") is a portion of an Old English heroic poem about a fight in which Hnæf and his 60 retainers are besieged at "Finn's fort" and attempt to hold off their attackers. The surviving text is tantal ...

, and the

Dream of the Rood ''The'' ''Dream of the Rood'' is one of the Christian poems in the corpus of Old English literature and an example of the genre of dream poetry. Like most Old English poetry, it is written in alliterative verse. ''Rood'' is from the Old Englis ...

. 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 quantitive studies of the corpus of Old English poetry. Neidorf's studies of ''Beowulf'' situate the poem in a wide variety of contexts. He explicates its text in relation to

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlemen ...

and

Middle High German Middle High German (MHG; german: Mittelhochdeutsch (Mhd.)) is the term for the form of German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High German and into Early New High German. Hig ...

analogues, medieval traditions concerning the monstrous progeny of Cain, and early English history and culture. In his studies of the ''Beowulf'' manuscript, Neidorf uses transcription errors in the transmitted text to extract information about the poem's textual history. 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. In the field of Old English meter, Neidorf defends the metrical theories of

Eduard Sievers Eduard Sievers (; 25 November 1850, Lippoldsberg – 30 March 1932, Leipzig) was a philologist of the classical and Germanic languages. Sievers was one of the '' Junggrammatiker'' of the so-called "Leipzig School". He was one of the most influe ...

and

Robert D. Fulk Robert Dennis Fulk (born October 2, 1951) is an American philologist and medievalist who is Professor Emeritus of English and Germanic Studies at Indiana University Bloomington. Biography Robert Dennis Fulk was born in Chicago on October 2, 1951. ...

. He argues for the utility of meter as a tool in the editing and dating of Old English poetry. In his methodological writing, Neidorf draws on the epistemology of Karl Popper and argues for the importance of

falsifiability Falsifiability is a standard of evaluation of scientific theories and hypotheses that was introduced by the philosopher of science Karl Popper in his book '' The Logic of Scientific Discovery'' (1934). He proposed it as the cornerstone of a s ...

and

probabilism In theology and philosophy, probabilism (from Latin ''probare'', to test, approve) is an ancient Greek doctrine of Academic skepticism. It holds that in the absence of certainty, plausibility or truth-likeness is the best criterion. The term can ...

in literary studies.

Selected works

* ''The Dating of Beowulf: A Reassessment'', 2014 * ''Old English Philology: Studies in Honour of R.D. Fulk'', 2016 * ''The Transmission of Beowulf: Language, Culture, and Scribal Behavior'', 2017

References

External links

Leonard Neidorf
at the website of

Leonard Neidorf
at

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Leonard Neidorf
at ResearchGate
Leonard Neidorf
at

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Neidorf, Leonard American philologists Anglo-Saxon studies scholars Eastern Regional High School alumni Germanic studies scholars Harvard University alumni Harvard University faculty Living people Nanjing University faculty New York University alumni People from Voorhees Township, New Jersey Year of birth missing (living people)

Biography

Research

Selected works

See also

References

External links