A further ISO 639-3 criterion for historic languages is that they have a distinct literature from their descendant languages: in the example of Old English, Beowulf and other works of Old English literature form a distinct body of material.
Nicholas Howe (1953-2006) was an American scholar of Old English literature and culture, whose Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England (1989) was an important contribution to the study of Old English literature and historiography.
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John Miles Foley (1947 – 2012) was a scholar of comparative oral tradition, particularly medieval and Old English literature, Homer and Serbian epic.
Göller was widely admired for the number and range of his publications: six books and over 110 essays on topics as diverse as the Old English elegies, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Shelley, T. S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, nursery rhymes and science fiction.
Neil Ripley Ker, FBA, (1908-1982) was a scholar of Anglo-Saxon literature.
The Battle of Maldon is the name given to an Old English poem of uncertain date celebrating the real Battle of Maldon of 991, at which the Anglo-Saxons failed to prevent a Viking invasion.
Heathen Gods in Old English Literature details North's theory that the god Ing played a prominent role in the pre-Christian religion of Anglo-Saxon England, and highlights references to him in such texts as Beowulf and the sole surviving Anglo-Saxon copy of the Book of Exodus.