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The advent of poetry: Christ I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Edward B. Irving Jr
Edward B. Irving Jr
Affiliation:
The University of Pennsylvania
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Extract

Two masterpieces stand out of the mass of Anglo-Saxon religious poetry: The Dream of the Rood and the sequence of liturgical lyrics in the Exeter Book variously known as Christ I, the Advent Lyrics or simply Advent. The two works are similar in focus and technique as well as in quality. Both express the mystery of Incarnation in terms of a riddle: how can it be that Deus and Homo make their impossible contact? What terms can make this meeting graspable by the imagination? Both give eloquent voice to human suffering and human hope, and seem to recognize that it is only through appealing to these feelings that theology can come to life for us by being experienced.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 25 , December 1996 , pp. 123 - 134
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 This paper was originally presented, in virtually the same form, as a talk at the ISAS meeting in Oxford in August, 1993.I owe thanks to an early reader, Janet Knepper, for helping me see and exploit some advantages of order, but she bears no blame for what faults might remain. The text of the poem Advent (or Christ l) is available in The Exeter Book, ed. Krapp, G. P. and Dobbie, E. V. K., ASPR 3 (New York, 1936)Google Scholar, and also in two separate editions with commentaries: Campbell, J. J., The Advent Lyrics of the Exeter Book (Princeton, NJ, 1959)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Burlin, R. B., The Old English Advent: a Typological Commentary (New Haven, CT, 1968). Burlin's volume is especially full on the exegetical background of the poem.Google Scholar

2 The Christ of Cyneuwulf, ed. Cook, A. S. (Boston, 1909)Google Scholar; repr. with a preface by Pope, J. C. (Hamden, CT, 1964).Google Scholar

3 For the purposes of the present (esthetic) approach, I make two unprovable assumptions: that the series of liturgical lyrics has enough cohesion and consistency (partly imposed by the sources and partly by the Anglo-Saxon poet) to be considered a single poetic construct, and that it can be considered such a work even though it is plainly missing a beginning and possibly other components. The question of liturgical sources has recently been discussed authoritatively by Rankin, S., ‘The Liturgical Background of the Old English Advent Lyrics’, in Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England: Studies presented to Peter Clemoes on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Lapidge, M. and Gneuss, H. (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 317–40.Google Scholar She agrees with other recent scholars that three antiphons seem to be missing at the beginning (p. 333).

4 ‘O Earendel – brightest of angels sent to men all over earth and true light of the sun shining over all the stars – you always illuminate every time for yourself, from yourself. As you were always God of God already born son of the true father in the sky's radiance without a beginning, so now your own.created thing in its time of need is bold to wait [or pray, if we read as biddeð?] that you send us that bright sun and come youself so that you bring light to those who for long covered in smoke and here in the darkness sat in perpetual night. Wrapped in sin they were forced to endure the dark shadow of death.’

5 Snorri Sturluson in his Prose Edda tells a story of how, when Aurvandill was being carried back from the land of giants by Thor in a basket, his toe froze and broke off. Thor threw it up into the sky; the star is still called Aurvandils ta. A recent commentator, Rudolf, Simek (Dictionary of Northern Mythology, trans. Hall, A. (Woodbridge, 1993), s.v. Aurvandill), thinks that the story was invented to explain the already existing star-name, which appears in other Germanic legends as well; he concludes: ‘the obscure remains of the myth do not enlighten this evidence’.Google Scholar

6 O clavis David is the second of the surviving antiphons, lines 18–49.

7 Riddle 42 in the edition by Craig, Williamson, The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill, NC, 1977)Google Scholar; Riddle 44 in the numbering of the Krapp-Dobbie edition of the Exeter Book.

8 General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, lines 1–18.

9 This lyric may be found in several standard anthologies of Middle English lyrics, as well as in Carleton, Brown, Religious Lyrics of the Fifteenth Century (Oxford, 1939), no. 81, ‘The Maiden Makeles’.Google Scholar

10 Cook (The Christ of Cynemulf, pp. 96–7) quotes at some length W. D. Conybeare and other nineteenth-century scholars who saw in the passage a very early precursor of the later mystery plays.Google Scholar

11 ‘Every spiritual gift sprouted all over the earth's surface, where many twigs were brought into light by the long-lasting teaching through the prince of life – [things] which had lain hidden under cover – the singing of prophets, when the ruler came, he who amplifies the course of each voice of those who often wish in most proper way to praise the Creator's name.’

12 ‘O vision of peace sancta Hierusakm best of royal thrones Christ's own city native seat of angels – and in you alone then the souls of the righteous [will] always come to rest exulting in radiance.’

13 The reader is referred to Burlin's commentary for a full discussion of these ‘comings’.

14 The hope is received that now blessing may exist for both in common – for men and for women – forever on to the world's end, to live always in the high joy of angels with the true father.’

15 See Burlin's discussion of Melchisedech's important place in typological interpretation (The Old English Advent, pp. 10–14).Google Scholar

16 Wielding Ockham's razor as best I can, I take lines 164–75a as spoken by Mary; 175b–195a as spoken by Joseph; and 197–213 as (indisputably) spoken by Mary. But the problem of speech assignment here is real and persistent, resisting a wholly satisfactory solution.

17 ‘I speak truth through the Lord's son, helper of spirits, that I still have not known any man in sexual union, no man on earth – but it was granted to me young in the courtyard that Gabriel, heaven's high angel, offered me greeting, said truly that the spirit of the sky would brighten me with light.’

18 ‘Show us now that mercy that the angel Gabriel, God's messenger, brought you. The citizens beg you indeed that you make known to the people that comfort – your own son. After that, we may all hope with courage, now that we look at that child on the breast.’

19 Susan Rankin agrees with Cook (against Campbell and Burlin) that the extant O beata et benedicta et gloriosa trinitas ‘still appears the most satisfactory suggestion’ for a source (‘The Liturgical Background’, p. 326).Google Scholar

20 ‘O beautiful full of honours high and holy heavenly Trinity widely blessed all over the spacious plains – you whom justly speech-bearers wretched earth-dwellers ought to praise highly with all their strength now that God the Saviour true to his word has revealed to us that we may know him. Indeed that race of seraphim – active and strengthened with glory up high among angels always celebrating – they sing with unfailing powers high above with loud voice beautiful far and near. They have the best of places near the King – Christ gave that to them, that they were allowed to enjoy his presence with their eyes – always forever clothed in radiance honour the Ruler far and wide and with their wings could guard the face of the almighty Lord and around the throne crowd eagerly [to see] which of them could get closest to our Rescuer playing in flight in the courts of peace.’

21 See, for instance, Evans, J. M., Paradise Lost and the Genesis Tradition (Oxford, 1968), p. 255Google Scholar, who suggests that there is strong evidence that Milton knew the Old Saxon poem, whereas the entry by Carnicelli, T. A. in A Milton Encyclopedia, ed. Hunter, W. B. Jr, 8 vols. (Lewisburg, PA, 1978–1980) I, 51–3, sees the similarity of the two Satan characterizations as coincidental.Google Scholar