colleagues in Wales, too conservative for my colleagues in Switzerland. So I
turned to my earlier manuscript and rewrote it. There is much in this new
book, I think, to please -- or displease -- most of the people I thank here.

I am hardly the first scholar of insular literature to find myself in this
liminal position: Allen Frantzen, Gillian Overing, John Hermann, and oth-
ers have attempted to bridge traditional and contemporary theories in Anglo-
Saxon Studies, and I hope that the Welsh sphere will reap the benefits that
such investigations, controversial as they are, have brought to the study of
Old English. Frantzen's recent anthology of essays on medieval literature,
Speaking Two Languages, which aims to bring "contemporary criticism to
parity with traditional methodology," offers a useful trope in its title, and it is
in this sense of the enlightening analytical stance which two discourses give
us that I offer Between Languages.

I would like to thank my teachers at Berkeley for their instruction over the
years in Early Welsh, Old English, and other medieval languages, and who
helped send me to Wales: Carol Clover, Joseph Duggan, Kathryn Klar, Dan
Melia, the late Brendan O Hehir, Ray Oliver, Annalee Rehjon, and espe-
cially Alain Renoir, to whom I am most grateful for the formative hours and
years he has given me as a professor, director, and friend. I am also grateful to
John O. H. Harrington, of the United States/United Kingdom Educational
Commission, for welcoming me to Great Britain and arranging my stay
there. I thank Gerallt Harries at the University College of Swansea and
Marged Haycock at the University of Wales at Aberystwyth for their assis-
tance. But special thanks must go to my academic director Brynley Roberts
(then at the University College of Swansea), whose instruction, encourage-
ment, open-mindedness, patience, and personal kindness helped me over the
rough areas of my first year abroad.

I have also garnered assistance and suggestions for this book from numer-
ous friends and colleagues: Derek Brewer, Harry Butler, Mary Cappello,
Patrick Ford, Orin Gensler, Ken Gross, Thomas Hahn, George Lakoff, Seth
Lerer, Françoise Le Saux, Laura Morland, Russell Peck, Eve Salisbury,
David Sewell, Brian Stock, Nancy Porter Stork, and Paul Beekman Taylor. I
am especially grateful to Nick Doan, Jim Earl, Allen Frantzen, Alexandra
Olsen, Eve Sweetser, and Maria Tymoczko for the detailed care and atten-
tion they have given the manuscript in its various final stages. Thanks must
go as well to the patience, encouragement, and scrupulous vigilance of the
editorial staff at Penn State Press, especially Philip Winsor, Wilma Ebbitt,
and Cherene Holland. My mistakes are my own, but my inspiration and
courage have found much assistance from others -- inside and outside of
America, inside and outside of the field.

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