Bibliographical Notes on the Old English Poem Judgment Day I

1974 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 412-413
Author(s):  
Richard J. Daniels
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
English Poem

Sepulchral Jews and Stony Christians

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathy Lavezzo
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Old English ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
English Poem ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Temple

This chapter examines the unstable geography of Christian and Jew during the Anglo-Saxon period through an analysis of Bede's Latin exegetical work On the Temple (ca. 729–731) and in Cynewulf's Old English poem Elene. It takes as its starting point how Bede and Cynewulf tackle a material long associated with Jewish materialism, stone, in comparison with Christian materialism and descibes their accounts of the sepulchral Jew as well as the stony nature of Jews. It also considers how Bede and Cynewulf construct Christianity by asserting its alterity and opposition to an idea of Jewish carnality that draws on and modifies Pauline supersession. The chapter concludes with an assessment of how Bede's and Cynewulf's charged engagements with supersession and “Jewish” places contribute both to our understanding of Anglo-Saxon material culture and to the important role that ideas of the Jew played in such materialisms.

LIX. The Address of the Soul to the Body

PMLA ◽  
1935 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 957-983 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rudolph Willard
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
The Body ◽  
Bodleian Library ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
English Poem ◽  
Conspicuous Feature ◽  
University Library ◽  
Intermediate Time ◽  
The Moment

There exist in Old English a number of compilations in which an address of the soul to its body is a conspicuous feature. The best known is the poem in the Vercelli and the Exeter Books, in which the soul returns to its body once a week and communes with it, the sinful soul reproaching it vituperatively, the righteous comforting it lovingly and joyously. The fourth Vercelli homily has a remarkable scene, an elaborated account of the judgement of the soul at Doomsday, in which the souls address their bodies as they stand in the presence of the Judge. The Last Judgement is again the scene of an address, and that in one of the homilies presented by Assmann. There is, finally, the Old English vision, printed by Thorpe and Napier, of the bringing forth of the soul, wherein the newly-released soul of a sinner vituperates the body it has just left. To this literature, I wish to add passages from two unpublished Old English homilies, in which the address is made, not at the moment of death, as in Thorpe and Napier, nor at the Last Judgement, as in Vercelli Homily iv and in Assmann, but at some intermediate time, when the soul returns intermittently to its body for that purpose, as in the Old English poem. These two texts are Homilies ii and iv of MS. Junius 85 of the Bodleian Library, and Homily xl of MS. Ii. 1.33 of the Cambridge University Library.

Hebrews, Israelites, and Wicked Jews: An Onomastic Crux in ‘Andreas’ 161-67

Traditio ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 358-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas D. Hill
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
English Poem

In the Old English poem Andreas, the narrative begins with the imprisonment and suffering of Matthew, who is blinded and forced to drink a magic potion which is intended to reduce him to bestiality. This drink, which literarily is directly descended from Circe's potion, fails to be effective in this case, and Matthew prays to God for help in his affliction. God responds directly and tells Matthew that He will bring help. God's help is mediated by the apostle Andrew, and immediately before God summons Andrew He is apostrophized in the following passage: þa w æs gemyndig, se Ðe middangeardgestaÐelode strangum mihtum.hu he in ellþeodigum yrmÐum wunodebelocen leoÐubendum, þe oft his lufan adregfor Ebreum ond Israhelum,swylce he Iudea galdorcræftumwiÐstod stranglice.1

scholarly journals Women Write the Past: Medieval Scholarship, Old English and New Literature

2017 ◽  
Vol 93 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-22
Author(s):  
Clare A. Lees
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Medieval Women ◽  
English Poem ◽  
Eavan Boland ◽  
The Past ◽  
Women Scholars ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Consolation Of Philosophy ◽  
New Literature ◽  
Contemporary Artists

This article explores the contributions of women scholars, writers and artists to our understanding of the medieval past. Beginning with a contemporary artists book by Liz Mathews that draws on one of Boethius‘s Latin lyrics from the Consolation of Philosophy as translated by Helen Waddell, it traces a network of medieval women scholars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries associated with Manchester and the John Rylands Library, such as Alice Margaret Cooke and Mary Bateson. It concludes by examining the translation of the Old English poem, The Wife‘s Lament, by contemporary poet, Eavan Boland. The art of Liz Mathews and poetry of Eavan Boland and the scholarship of women like Alice Cooke, Mary Bateson, Helen Waddell and Eileen Power show that women‘s writing of the past – creative, public, scholarly – forms a strand of an archive of women‘s history that is still being put together.

The prefix un- and the metrical grammar of Beowulf

1981 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 39-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Calvin B. Kendall
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Old English ◽  
The Other ◽  
Wide Area ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Poetic Tradition ◽  
English Poem ◽  
The Battle Of Maldon ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Considerable Period

Two rules of the metrical grammar of the Beowulf poet are the subject of this paper. One concerns the variation of stress on the prefix un-; the other pertains to the alliteration of compounds. The two are correlated. The paper rests on the premise that the ‘metre’ of an Old English poem is only one function of a set of regularities that make it something we call verse rather than prose. Separately these regularities may be described as ‘rules’; taken as a group, the rules comprise a metrical grammar. Each Anglo-Saxon scop absorbed such a grammar during the course of long immersion in the poetic tradition of his culture. No two scops' metrical grammars could have been exactly alike; in addition to individual differences, there must have been regional and dialectal variations, although the poetic tradition ensured remarkable uniformity over a wide area and a considerable period of time, and only at the end of the Old English period, with let us say The Battle of Maldon, are significant changes manifest. Further investigation would therefore be needed to determine to what extent the rules here described apply to other grammars.

scholarly journals LINGUOSTYLISTIC MEANS OF CONTEXTUAL SEGMENTATION OF THE OLD ENGLISH POEM THE SEAFARER

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-127
Author(s):  
Sergey V. Mukhin ◽  
◽  
Darya A. Efremova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
English Poem

scholarly journals The Concept of Body and Soul in the Old English Tradition

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-255
Author(s):  
A. V. Proskurina
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Rene Descartes ◽  
Short Version ◽  
Common Source ◽  
Religious Ideology ◽  
English Poem ◽  
Christian Teaching ◽  
René Descartes ◽  
Main Ideas ◽  
Vercelli Book

The author examines the 10 th century ancient English poem Soul and Body through the prism of the soul, spirit and body in the Old English tradition, which has survived in two versions. The first, which was part of the poetry book Exeter Book, is a short version of the conversion of the unfortunate soul to the flesh. The second version is an expanded version of the poem, listed in the Vercelli Book along with Christian sermons and poems, also represents the con- version of the tormented soul to the flesh, as well as a monologue of the saved soul. However, unfortunately, the speech of the redeemed soul was not fully preserved due to damage to the Vercelli Book collection. This article provides an author's translation of the second version of the poem. The article focuses on the dualism of René Descartes. Thus, an extended version of the Old English poem Soul and Body precedes the dualism of René Descartes, whose main ideas are the duality of the ideal and the material, the independence of the soul and body. The philosophy of René Descartes is to accept a common source – God as the creator who forms these two independent principles that we find in this poem. The spirit, as shown in the work, is the divine principle in man, created in the image and likeness of God, and appears as the highest part of the soul, and the soul, in turn, is the immortal spiritual principle. In the framework of the Judeo- Christian culture, a central doctrine of the presence of the soul arose, suggesting the elevation of man over all other living beings due to the presence of it. According to religious ideology, a person’s position in the dolly and mountain worlds directly depends on the purity of the believer’s soul, on his refusal from sinful thoughts and deeds. As soon as the Judeo-Christian teaching is fixed as the main religion, a person endowed with a soul is considered as the only ration- al creature created in the image and likeness of God. The existence of the soul is not limited only to the Judeo-Christian idea of the world around us, for example, the Quran also contains the idea of the unity of man and soul, and, undoubtedly, the soul of a righteous Muslim ascends to heaven after death.

Patristic Psychology in the Old English ‘Vainglory’

Traditio ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 324-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catharine A. Regan
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Striking Resemblance ◽  
English Poem ◽  
Artistic Work ◽  
The Church

Since the Old English poem Vainglory is generally considered mediocre, and since no source has been found, critics usually dismiss it with terms such as ‘homiletic,’ ‘didactic,’ and ‘reflective.’ Because the poem is an admonition against pride and related sins, these terms are all applicable, but they do little to explain the nature of the tradition in which the poet writes. In both its content and form Vainglory bears a striking resemblance to specific teachings of the Church Fathers. Though an analysis of Vainglory in the light of these patristic writings will not transform the poem into an artistic work, it will illustrate the degree to which the poet depends on the teachings of the Church Fathers; moreover, I believe that this analysis may suggest an approach to the understanding of other Old English poems. When I cite passages from the Fathers I am not suggesting that they are the poet's conscious source, but rather that they are representative of the teachings which he knew and by which he was influenced.

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