Search Results (8)

This paper explores a constructionist and corpus-based approach to Old English formulaic language through an analysis of the “maþelode system” of speech introductions. The analysis is performed on a section of the York-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Poetry, comprising the poems Beowulf, Battle of Brunanburh, and Exodus. The results show that most instances of the maþelode system belong to a well-attested construction continuum, structured by the widespread Old English (and ultimately Germanic) poetic devices of variation and kenning. This continuum ranges from more fixed repetitions that exclusively involve the verb maþelian to more schematic patterns that are also attested by other speech verbs, by verbs of giving, as well as by a number of further verbs of various semantic types. The particularly high frequency of this pattern with speech verbs and verbs of giving matches the prominent role, highlighted by previous studies, of both word-exchange and gift-exchange within Old English heroic ideology, and suggests that these formulaic patterns served the purpose to characterize the protagonists of speech or giving events as heroic and/or lordly figures. Full article

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

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

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

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

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

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

A great deal of scholarship on Old English soul-body poetry centers on whether or not the presence of dualist elements in the poems are unorthodox in their implication that the body, as a material object, is not only wicked but seems to possess more agency in the world than the soul. I argue that the Old English soul-body poetry is not heterodox or dualist, but is best understood, as Allen J. Frantzen suggests, within the “context of penitential practice.” The seemingly unorthodox elements are resolved when read against the backdrop of pre-Conquest English monastic reform culture, which was very much concerned with penance, asceticism, death, and judgment. Focusing especially on two anonymous 10th-century Old English poems, Soul and Body I in the Vercelli Book and Soul and Body II in the Exeter Book, I argue that that both body and soul bear equal responsibility in achieving salvation and that the work of salvation must be performed before death, a position that was reinforced in early English monastic literature that was inspired, at least in part, by Eastern ascetics such as fourth-century Syrian hymnologist and theologian, St. Ephraim. Full article