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The uncarpentered world of Old English poetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Earl R. Anderson
Earl R. Anderson
Affiliation:
Cleveland State University
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Extract

Cultural archaism is often thought of as a natural concomitant of oral tradition, and by extension, of a literature that is influenced by oral tradition. In the case of Old English poetry, archaism might include residual pagan religious beliefs and practices, such as the funeral rites in Beowulf or the use of runes for sortilege, and certain outmoded aspects of social organization such as the idea of a state dependent upon the comitatus for military security. An example often cited is the adaptation of heroic terminology and detail to Christian topics. The compositional method in Cædmon's ‘Hymn’, for instance, is regarded by many scholars as an adaptation of panegyric epithets to the praise of God, although N. F. Blake has noted that heroic epithets in the poem could have derived their inspiration from the psalms. In The Dream of the Rood, the image of Christ mounting the Cross as a warrior leaping to battle has been regarded variously as evidence of an artistic limitation imposed by oral tradition, or as a learned metaphor pointing to the divine and human nature of Christ and to the crucifixion as a conflict between Christ and the devil. The martyrdom of the apostles is represented as military conflict in Cynewulf's Fates of the Apostles, Christ and his apostles as king and comitatus in Cynewulf's Ascension, and temptation by devils as a military attack in Guthlac A; these illustrate a point made by A.B. Lord concerning the nature of conservatism in oral tradition: ‘tradition is not a thing of the past but a living and dynamic process which began in the past [and] flourishes in the present’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 20 , December 1991 , pp. 65 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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38 ‘New by the headland, strengthened with cunning art’ (Beowulf 2243).

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62 ‘A dreary dwelling under a cliff’ (The Wife's Lament 50a and 48a).

63 ‘A more pleasant settlement’ (52a).

64 For sele as ‘dwelling’ rather than ‘hall’, see DeRoo, C. H., ‘Old English Sele’, Neophilologus 64 (1980), 113–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The idea is that the geong man must live without shelter, not that he lives in a sort of'anti-hall’. It should be noted that for the concept of'anti-hall’ in Old English poetry, in Hume, K., ‘The Concept of the Hall in Old English Poetry’, ASE 3 (1974), 63–74Google Scholar, at 68–70, most of the supporting examples are based on the view that sele means ‘hall’.

65 Examples of such metaphorical interpretations of details abound in the critical literature. Gradon, P., in Form and Style in Early English Literature (London, 1971), p. 170Google Scholar, writes that the Wife ‘uses language so generalised and conventional that we do not know what is actual and what is image’. Wentersdorf, , ‘The Situation’, p. 514Google Scholar, who regards the eorôscrœf as a cave, writes, ‘One would expect the compound burgtunas, a hapax legomenon, to denote literally the defences (earthworks, ramparts, enclosures, walls) of a stronghold or settlement, and if so it may refer to the cliffs or beetling crags of the area… In the present context, a metaphorical interpretation of the hapax seems called for: “the confines of this joyless habitation are forbidding and overgrown with briars”.’ Green, M., ‘Time, Memory, and Elegy in The Wife's Lament’, The Old English Elegies: New Essays in Criticism and Research, ed. Green, , p. 125Google Scholar, regards the eorôscrœf as a cave and refers to ‘sketchy details of the surrounding landscape’ including ‘dim valleys and high hills that in the speaker's metaphoric association constitute a fortress (burgtuna, 31a)’. W.C. Johnson, in ‘The Wife's lament as Death-Song’ (ibid. p. 70), regards the eorôscrœf as a barrow and the burgtunas as ‘perhaps suggesting a group of burial mounds’ and evoking ‘an atmosphere of chthonic mystery’. Chase, D., ‘“The Wife's Lament”: an Eighth-Century Existential Cry’, Univ. of South Florida Lang. Quarterly 2A (1986), 18–20Google Scholar, comments that ‘the existential character of the poem is also evident, symbolically, in the setting’ (he interprets the eorôscrœf as a cave).

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68 ‘Around the helmet's crest as a head-protection, the ridge held outside, wound with wires’ (Beowulf 1030–1).

69 ‘A courageous one intended, a swift purpose set in motion; a resolute (builder) skilled in rings bound the foundation together wondrously with wires. The buildings of the city were bright, the bath-halls were many, the gilded horn-gables were high, the martial noise great, many a meadhall full of the revelry of men, until powerful Fate changed that’ (The Ruin 18–24).

70 Irving, E. B. Jr, ‘Image and Meaning in the Elegies’, Old English Poetry: Fifteen Essays, ed. Creed, R. P. (Providence, RI, 1967), p. 155.Google Scholar

71 ‘Some of the people ardently set stones far up at the top of the towers, joining the marble in solid slabs; others stand on the steps receiving in turn the loads that the porters bring, and with eager bands pass on the heavy stones … The busy throng comes and goes, scattered about the city, eagerly gathering material to build lofty Rome’. Karolus Magnus et Leo Papa, Ein Paderborner Epos vom Jahre 799, ed. Beumann, H., Brunhölzl, F. and Winkelmann, W. (Paderborn, 1966Google Scholar), lines 114–18 and 123–4.

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75 ‘Blown upon by wind, the walls stand covered with frost, snow-swept buildings’ (The Wanderer 76–7).Google Scholar