Representation and Design examines Old English poetry from the point of view of its interpretation, beginning with the assumption that Anglo-Saxon concepts of reading were probably very different from those that dominate our own literary culture. The book insists on the semantic interaction of representation and design, two aspects of Old English poetry that traditionally have been examined separately, and draws on Anglo-Saxon pictorial arts as a model throughout. It disputes the conventional dichotomy that interpretation makes between content and form, redefines content as a particular mode of representation - a reflection of texts and ideologies and recognizes form as complex and meaningful design so that the "two" no longer can be distinguished in the process of interpretation.