Building on the survey of the Germanic family in Germanic Philology I, this class will provide an introduction to Germanic comparative philology. We will take a broad view of the subject: our foundational perspective will be the methodology of linguistic comparison and reconstruction, but we will also look closely at the cultural dimension of philology (including literary history). During the first half of the semester, we will examine a variety of topics relevant to the cultural background of the Germanic languages in general, including religion, law, poetics, and heroic legend. In the second half, we will survey the Indo-European background and contexts for Germanic as a whole, from both linguistic and cultural perspectives.

Students are not expected to have prior familiarity with any language other than modern English. Coursework involves readings, philological exercises, and the study of short, glossed excerpts from medieval texts. The overall aim is to provide a basic familiarity with the methods and subject matter of Germanic philology and to make the medieval and ancient languages and texts that provide the field’s raw data appear less unfamiliar.