Medieval and Renaissance English

LiteratureOld English Literature 2.:

PoetryNatália Pikli, PhD

ELTE

Hymn of Cædmon (Old English→ Latin → Old English)

Nu sculon herigean     heofonrices weard,meotodes meahte     ond his modgeþanc, weorc wuldorfæder,     swa he wundra gehwæs, ece drihten,     or onstealde.

He ærest sceop      eorðan bearnum heofon to hrofe,     halig scyppend; þa middangeard     moncynnes weard, ece drihten,     æfter teode firum foldan,     frea ælmihtig.

4-stress alliterative line with a caesure (4 stressed syllables, varying number of unstressed syllables)

repetition and alliteration: mnemonic device/oral poetry Kenning – metaphorical compound: earth’s children = men, ‘woruld-

candel’, ‘hron-rad’ (whale-road)

•

Hymn of Caedmon

• focus on ‘mankind’• God=protector/guardian -

like a Germanic lord/king (mankind’s ward/’dryhten’)

• middlearth – Pagan beliefs (transitional age: Christian & Pagan) cf. J.R.R. Tolkien

• Roof/solid round: mead-hall

• ‘creation’ – beginning of the world/poetry

Now we must praise     the Protector of the heavenly kingdom,

The might of the Measurer     and His mind's purpose,

The work of the Father of Glory,     as He for each of the wonders, Theeternal Lord,      established a beginning.

He shaped first    for the sons of the Earth heaven as a roof,     the Holy Maker; then the Middle-World,     mankind's

Guardian,The eternal Lord,      made afterwards, solid ground for men,     the almighty

Lord.

Old English Poetry (30,000 lines): textual sources

MS Cotton Vitellius XV (BM, 17th c. Sir Robert Cotton): Beowulf, Judith and other prose piecesMS Junius XI: ‘Caedmon and his school’ – Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, Christ and Satan

(apocryphal) (Oxford, Bodleian Library, 16th c. Francois Dujon/Franciscus Junius)

MS The Exeter Book (Exeter Cathedral Library)The Wanderer, The Seafarer, Cynewulf: The Phoenix,

Deor’s Lament, Wuld and Eadwacer, The Ruin, etc. MS The Vercelli Book (Northern Italy, St. Andres’s

Cathedral) The Dream of the RoodThe Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: The Battle of BrunanburhFragments: Battle of Maldon, Finnesburh Fragment

Old English Poetry: genres

• Heroic poetry– (longer) epic poem – Beowulf– (shorter narrative poems) lays: Battle of Maldon, Battle of

Brunanburh (Byrthnoth)• Biblical/religious poetry

– dream vision: The Dream of the Rood– biblical stories (cf. Caedmon)

• Elegiac poetry: Deor’s Lament (scop) The Wanderer, The Seafarer: twin poems

• Secular poetry/elegies: riddles, love elegies (Wulf and Eadwacer, The Wife’s Lament, The Husband’s Message)

Beowulf• 3182 lines: longest and

earliest Germanic epic poem• early 6th c.(Hygelac) – late

10th c. (oral-formulaic poetry, scops or oral-derived poetry: repeated scenes, phrases)

• 1 MS, 2 scribes – Pagan story w. Christian colouring

• Danes. Geats and other Germanic peoples

• memory (tradition)• entertainment• model example1. ‘Þæt was god cyning’2. hero/warrior

The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial

mead-hall/Heorot/comitatus

Listen!We have heard of the glory in bygone days

of the folk-kings of the spear-Danes,how those noble lords did lofty deeds.Often Scyld Scefing seized the mead-benchesfrom many tribes, troops of enemies,struck fear into earls. Though he first wasfound a waif, he awaited solace for that –he grew under heaven and prospered in honoruntil every one of the encircling nationsover the whale’s-riding had to obey him,grant him tribute. That was a good king!

Beowulf: the storyPart 1: (ship) funerals, fights and banquets• Scyld Scefing (shield, sheafson, corn

god, foundling), Danish royal dynasty → King Hrothgar (Heorot, mead-hall)

• Grendel (‘Cain’s descendant’)• Beowulf, young Geatish hero (strength

of 30 men)• Grendel’s mother• Swords: Nægling, HruntingPart 2:Beowulf, King of the Geats, 50 yrs,

dragon, protecting his people, Wiglaf, funeral pyre – ship in a barrow

Structure: rise and fall, 3 fights, 3 funerals w. lots of episodes/scops’s stories (flashbacks and references to the future)

German heroic ideal: 1. ‘Þæt was god cyning’: ‘scourge of many tribes’, ‘great ring-

giver’, ‘shield’2. hero/warrior: physical strength and stamina, loyalty to the

lord, fights and fame3. comitatus: lord and loyal retainersTransitional age: ‘the mighty lord went to the Lord’s keeping’,

‘Men do not knowhow to say truly – not trusted counselors,nor heroes under the heavens – who received that cargo’, in Heorot: scop singing about The Creationwyrd vs Lord

Formulae: ‘Beowulf mađelode, bearn Ecg đeowes’ ‘Wiglaf mađelode, Wihstanes sunu’

Set ‘scenes’ of arrivals, banqueting, fights, etc.

Kennings: Beowulf on the funeral pyre: ‘famous lord’ →’careful master’→ ‘bone-house’

Translations into modern English: Seamus Heaney (wordhoard)

• The Dream of the Rood: MS 10th c.

• Ruthwell Cross: 8th-early 9th c., Dumfriesshire, Scotland

The Dream of the Rood

dream vision: mediation

I. The Dreamer’s descriptive vision

II. The Rood’s narrative vision (memory) – Christ’s passion/Rood’s passion

III. The Rood’s address to the Dreamer (mission, understanding)

IV. The Dreamer’s personal reflections

Behold! The best of dreams I shall tell, what I dreamt in the midnight, after mortal men upon couches dwell. It seem to me that I perceived a rare and wondrous tree5 extending on high a surrounding light alit the wood brightly. All that beacon was covered with gold; jewels studded lovingly at its Earthen base, while likewise there were five upon that shoulder-span. Behold there the Angel of God,10 lovely through-out eternity. There was not an evil criminal on the gallows, but it was at He there gazed the Holy Spirits, men throughout Earth and all this glorious creation. Wondrous was that Victory Tree, and I the sinner guilty and badly wounded with stain.

There I observed the glorious wood15 adorned with garment that beautifully beamed, garnished with gold; with it gems stood covering splendidly the Lord's tree. But nevertheless through that gold I understood the wretched ancient struggle, when it first began20 bleeding on the right side. I was with sorrow disturbed, frightened for this stunning vision. Saw I that brilliant beacon then change garment and color: sometimes with moisture soaked, drenched in flowing blood, sometimes with treasure still adorned. But nevertheless I there lay a long time I took25 sorrowfully gazing at the Saviours's tree, until then I dreamt that it spoke; beginning with these words the tree did decree:

• Duality: – wondrous/glorious, blood/jewels, Victory tree/instrument of

torture and death– basic paradox of Christianity: death=life, defeat=victory, Son of

Man=Son of God– Pagan and Christian:

• rood/crucifix = world tree (axis, ygdrasil)• Totemism/speaking tree and symbol of Christianity• Christ: „young hero”, „mighty King”, „Prince” „the warrior”, „hasten

with great zeal”, „bitter struggle”„There I did not dare to break God's word

and bend down or break, though I felt the tremble of the Earthen surface. I might have been able upon those fiends to fall, yet I stood stable.“ loyal retainer=humility!

Parallelism – ‘sym-pathia’• humble beginnings• „With dark nails they pierced me: on me the scars are visible”• „Mocked they us both together”• „Then men chopped us down”• „They buried us in a deep pit”• resurrection as ‘Christ’/’Holy Rood’

Rood’s address to the Dreamer: ‘that you this vison tell to men’, Doomsday, ‘by virtue of the Cross’ - mediator

Dreamer: ‘prayed I then to the tree in joyful spirit’, I look forward […] the heavenly dream, there with the Lord’s people / to be with always, in perpetual bliss […] I shall be the Lord’s friend’’

memory – understanding – will

The Elegies: topic of loss and decay - transience

Dear’s Lament: Deor (‘dear’) scop (in exile or captivity), references to diff. stories, melancholy/hope: ‘This passed away, this also may’

The Wanderer, The Seafarer: twin poems, ‘solitary layman speakers’, transitional age, images of nature – images of the soul (stormy sea)

The Wife’s Lament (losing husband, feud, cavern, „Grief goes side by side with those / who suffer longing for a loved one”), The Husband’s Message, Wulf (woman speaking)

The Ruin – ruined city (Roman Bath), ‘giants’ work’

The Wanderer

- The lord-retainer relaionship – losing one’s lord = losing one’s place in society, warm joys vs sleet, wind and cold: winter

• „Where is the feasting place? Where the pleasures of the hall?” (ubi sunt)

• „I mourn the gleaming cup, the warrior in his corselet / the glory of the prince”

• „the world beneath the heavens is in the hands of fate” (wyrd) vs „it is best for a man to seek mercy and comfort from the Father in heaven”

• Ideal of steadfast/brave/wise man – resignation and melancholy

The Seafarer

• more Christian sentiments, esp. in part 2• Life at sea vs life on land: • „He thinks not of the harp nor of receiving rings, / nor of

rapture in a woman, nor of worldly joy, / nor of anything but the rolling of the waves; / the seafarer will always feel longings” „my heart leaps within me / my mind roams with the waves / over the whale’s domain”

• Fame and praise vs gold „the gold […] is no use at all to his soul /full of sins, in the face of God’s wrath”

• „Blessed is the humble man: mercy comes to him from heaven / God gave man a soul because He trusts in His strength”

Bibliography/web sources

• The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature (Cambridge Univ. Press)

• The Anglo-Saxon World: An Anthology (Oxford Univ. Press)

• Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (http://bosworth.ff.cuni.cz/)

• Beowulf: http://www.heorot.dk/beowulf-on-steorarume_front-page.html

• Dream of the Rood: http://www.dreamofrood.co.uk/frame_start.htm