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Rereading The Wife’s Lament with Dido of Carthage: The Husband and the Herheard

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Humanities 2022, 11(3), 69; https://doi.org/10.3390/h11030069 - 30 May 2022

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The Old English poem in The Exeter Book titled The Wife’s Lament is about longing and loneliness; the woman speaking in the poem longs for her absent husband who has sent her to live in a “cave under an oak tree”. The husband’s [...] Read more.

The Old English poem in The Exeter Book titled The Wife’s Lament is about longing and loneliness; the woman speaking in the poem longs for her absent husband who has sent her to live in a “cave under an oak tree”. The husband’s attitude toward his wife is a major point of controversy among commentators on the poem: has he sent her there as a punishment or for her protection? This essay argues that he loves her and seeks to protect her in his absence. The argument supporting this view addresses the following three topics: the reason he must leave and his brooding silence preceding that departure, the culture of warrior oaths, and the nature of the “cave” where the speaker is located. The first two discussions assess and reframe previous scholarship, while the discussion of the speaker’s location introduces a new area of research, the archaeology of early medieval rock-cut buildings. Finding that the poet might imagine the Wife inhabiting such a constructed building invites us to think about her, her husband, the poem, and even the Exeter Book itself within a new and interesting real-world context. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Old English Poetry and Its Legacy)

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Open AccessArticle

Tearas Feollon: Tears and Weeping in Old English Literature

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Hugh Magennis

Humanities 2022, 11(2), 54; https://doi.org/10.3390/h11020054 - 12 Apr 2022

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Abstract

This contribution surveys the range of images of weeping in Old English literature, concentrating particularly on weeping due to suffering, grief and unhappiness, and on tears of compunction, but examining other types of weeping as well, including supplicatory and sympathetic weeping (these latter [...] Read more.

This contribution surveys the range of images of weeping in Old English literature, concentrating particularly on weeping due to suffering, grief and unhappiness, and on tears of compunction, but examining other types of weeping as well, including supplicatory and sympathetic weeping (these latter are found in prose but not in poetry). Taking account of contemporary theory, the study understands weeping to be a physical manifestation of distress, but also to function as a social gesture, as reflected in the circumstance that most weeping in Old English is public rather than private. It is noted that saints do not normally weep in the literature despite the suffering they typically endure, and also that in traditional Old English poetry weeping is seen as not appropriate for men, or at least for men in the prime of life. Some of the most interesting instances of weeping in Old English, however, are to be found in episodes that appear to contradict or problematize such expectations, as is illustrated by the examination of a number of relevant examples. The references to weeping cited in this study are in the majority of cases based on Latin models, and reflect the wider Christian literary tradition in the early Middle Ages, rather than being specific to Anglo-Saxon England; but, in both religious and secular works, Old English writers are shown to be thoughtful and imaginative in their treatment of weeping and to deploy images of it to forceful emotive effect. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Old English Poetry and Its Legacy)

Open AccessArticle

The Manuscripts of Solomon and Saturn: CCCC 41, CCCC 422, BL Cotton Vitellius A.xv

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Tiffany Beechy

Humanities 2022, 11(2), 52; https://doi.org/10.3390/h11020052 - 07 Apr 2022

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Abstract

Reflecting John D. Niles’ recent codicological reading of the Exeter Book, this essay advances a comparative reading of the three manuscripts containing Old English Solomon and Saturn dialogues. These manuscripts attest that the Solomon and Saturn dialogues were “serious” texts, twice attending the [...] Read more.

Reflecting John D. Niles’ recent codicological reading of the Exeter Book, this essay advances a comparative reading of the three manuscripts containing Old English Solomon and Saturn dialogues. These manuscripts attest that the Solomon and Saturn dialogues were “serious” texts, twice attending the liturgy and later (12th century) joining high pre-scholastic philosophy. They further reveal a shift in the use of poetry over time. The earlier dialogues evince an “Incarnational poetics” that is distinct from but nevertheless comparable to the “monastic poetics” of the Exeter Book, while the later, prose dialogue has taken a less performative and more encyclopedic form. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Old English Poetry and Its Legacy)

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Open AccessArticle

Beowulf and the Hunt

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Francis Leneghan

Humanities 2022, 11(2), 36; https://doi.org/10.3390/h11020036 - 03 Mar 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3975

Abstract

The presence of hunting imagery in Beowulf has often been noted, but the significance of the figures of the stag and the wolf to the thematic design of the poem has yet to be fully explored. In this article, I first analyse the [...] Read more.

The presence of hunting imagery in Beowulf has often been noted, but the significance of the figures of the stag and the wolf to the thematic design of the poem has yet to be fully explored. In this article, I first analyse the sustained presentation of the Danish royal hall as a stag, before exploring how the Beowulf poet exploited the various traditional associations of the wolf in the development of the figures of Grendel and Grendel’s mother. Finally, I consider the elaboration of the hunting imagery in the final section of the poem, which focuses on the Geatish Messenger’s account of the pursuit and killing of King Ongentheow by Eofor and Wulf, and the beasts-of-battle motif. The article concludes that the Beowulf poet made extensive use of animal and hunting imagery in order to ground his work in the lived experiences and fears of his audience. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Old English Poetry and Its Legacy)

Open AccessArticle

Wyrd Poetics: Collapsing Timescapes and Untimely Desires in The Ruin

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Lisa M. C. Weston

Humanities 2022, 11(2), 35; https://doi.org/10.3390/h11020035 - 01 Mar 2022

Viewed by 2011

Abstract

John Niles suggests that Old English poems often “demand […] attention not only to the possible nuances of meaning of every word, but also to the spaces where no words are written and no story told”. Such spaces, he argues, invite readers into [...] Read more.

John Niles suggests that Old English poems often “demand […] attention not only to the possible nuances of meaning of every word, but also to the spaces where no words are written and no story told”. Such spaces, he argues, invite readers into a kind of intellectual “play” that constitutes, in fact, participation, even collaboration, in the creation of meaning. However, what of more literal spaces in texts, not perceptual gaps composed by a poet, but rather material gaps “crafted” by manuscript damage? What more radical, “veered” reading follows if we pay attention to the physical damage, neither to lament the loss nor to restore what might have been there once, but rather to collaborate with its void? The damage to the final folios of the Exeter Book manuscript means that we read a different poem from any “intact” or “original” text we may try to (re)create; we read something that not only responds to, but also reifies the material effects of time and wyrd, the powerful other-than-human force that plays so prominent a role in the poem. This essay seeks to unsettle the text by engaging with both the poem’s extant words and the silent spaces of wyrd’s traces “inscribed” upon the material manuscript. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Old English Poetry and Its Legacy)

Open AccessArticle

Old English Enigmatic Poems and Their Reception in Early Scholarship and Supernatural Fiction

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Patrick Joseph Murphy

Humanities 2022, 11(2), 34; https://doi.org/10.3390/h11020034 - 28 Feb 2022

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Abstract

The scholarly reception history of the Old English riddles and adjacent “enigmatic poems” of the Exeter Book reveals a long process of creating intelligibility and order out of a complicated and obscure manuscript context. Understanding this history of reception allows us to see [...] Read more.

The scholarly reception history of the Old English riddles and adjacent “enigmatic poems” of the Exeter Book reveals a long process of creating intelligibility and order out of a complicated and obscure manuscript context. Understanding this history of reception allows us to see the influence of Old English poetry on modern creative medievalism, including the unexpected influence of medieval “enigmatic” poetry on the modern genre of supernatural fiction. Specifically, it is argued that the scholarly reception of folios 122v–123v of the Exeter Anthology was instrumental in inspiring one of the acknowledged classic ghost stories of the twentieth century, M.R. James’s “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad”. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Old English Poetry and Its Legacy)

Open AccessArticle

Objects That Object, Subjects That Subvert: Agency in Exeter Book Riddle 5

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Jonathan Wilcox

Humanities 2022, 11(2), 33; https://doi.org/10.3390/h11020033 - 25 Feb 2022

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Abstract

A sequence of Old English riddles from the Exeter Book allow an implement to speak. This article focuses on one example, Riddle 5, generally solved as either a shield or a cutting board, to show how each interpretation gives voice not just to [...] Read more.

A sequence of Old English riddles from the Exeter Book allow an implement to speak. This article focuses on one example, Riddle 5, generally solved as either a shield or a cutting board, to show how each interpretation gives voice not just to an inanimate object but also to a non-elite member of early medieval English society—either a foot-soldier or a kitchen hand. The two solutions come together because the two answers are captured in a single Old English word—“bord”—and also because the two interpretations resonate in parallel ways, creating sympathy for down-trodden members of society who rarely get so much attention in the surviving poetic record. This article argues that Old English riddles provide an enduring legacy of social critique crafted through humor. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Old English Poetry and Its Legacy)

Open AccessArticle

An Unseen Eighth Rune: Runic Legacy and Multiliteral Performativity in Cynewulf’s The Fates of the Apostles

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Jacob Wayne Runner

Humanities 2021, 10(4), 124; https://doi.org/10.3390/h10040124 - 03 Dec 2021

Viewed by 1990

Abstract

The four Old English poems containing the runic Cyn(e)wulf ‘signature’ have continuously provoked debate as to the characters’ intratextual function and proper interpretation. While the prevailing view is that they are predominantly logogrammatic instantiations of traditional runic names, a case has nevertheless also [...] Read more.

The four Old English poems containing the runic Cyn(e)wulf ‘signature’ have continuously provoked debate as to the characters’ intratextual function and proper interpretation. While the prevailing view is that they are predominantly logogrammatic instantiations of traditional runic names, a case has nevertheless also been made for alternative words indicated by initialisms. Referencing both of these lines of reasoning in conjunction with a semiotic literary methodological stance, this article evaluates a single Cynewulf poem (The Fates of the Apostles) and its particular inclusion of runes amongst the bookhand alphabet characters. The assessment demonstrates the poem’s multiliteral destabilization of associative boundaries between different scripts, as well as between perceived boundaries of orality and legibility. In doing so, it identifies in the text an unseen ‘eighth rune’ that is semiotically operative. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Old English Poetry and Its Legacy)

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