- Probably date of Composition 8th Century or 10th Century, Widely disputed
- A major theme in The Dream of the Rood is the representation of the Crucifixion as a battle.
- The Dream of the Rood is the earliest dream-vision poem in the English language and one of the central documents of Old English Literature.
- The Dream of the Rood has three parts:
- The Dreamer's account of his vision of the Cross, the cross Jesus died on.
- The Rood's monologue describing the Crucifixion
- And the Dreamer's resolution to seek the Salvation of the Cross.
- Rood - method of honorable death
- Marker of the paganism and Christian beliefs.
- Talking tree is the side of paganism
- The tree is worthy of worship (line 130ish)
- Another pagan characteristic
- Sacrifice of the tree
- Norse Mythology (Oden, Norse God bound to the tree of life)
- Triumph over death is dressed in Gold jewels
- Anglo-Saxon
- Resolution to competing cultures
- Christ is a heroic warrior
- Cross is the loyal retainer force to participate in his own lords execution.
- Christ rewards followers
- Christ is willing to accept his own fate
- Spiritual and physical because he sees the cross as part of his own body.
- Christ is devine
- Heroic code to Christ in this poem
- Focus on where he is bleeding, major emphasis
- Stained with sin
- Wounded with defects
- Author unknown
- Kedmen or Sinwolfe (possible but not for sure)
- Author: Unknown (possibly Caedmon or Cynewulf)
- Genre: poetry, dream poem
- Plot summary: the poet is having a dream. He is speaking to the cross of Christ. In the first section he sees the cross covered with gems and realizes how wretched he is compared to the cross but then he sees the blood stains amidst the gems. In the second section, the cross tells the story of the crucifixion and equates itself with the suffering of Christ. It sees itself as Christ's loyal retainer, bearing everything for and with Christ. The third section gives the poets reflections on the dream. He praises God for eternal life and full of hope for eternal life.
- Theme:
- The passion and Resurrection of Christ.
- Hope for eternal life
- Christ's triumph over sin and evil
- Triumph achieved through suffering
- How does this book embody the characteristics of the time period:
- Shows Christ in the heroic tradition of Anglo-Saxon
- Shows the tree as a loyal retainer (thane)
- Christ shown as the Lord who will do what it takes to save his loyal followers
- Shows Christ's strength to a culture that valued strength
- Shows the Crucifixion as a battle
- Others:
- Beowulf-opposite reaction
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - overt Christianity
- Turned a Jewish man into a Germanic Hero
- Christian
- Beowulf like - Jesus.
- Beowulf like character warrior eager to go to battle
- Poetry=creative writing
- epic - pastoral
- Probably date of composition = 8th C
- the earliest dream vision poem in the English language and one of the central documents of Old English literature
- A mystical dream vision whose narrator tells of his dream that the rood - Christ's cross - appeared to him and told the story of its unwilling role in the crucifixion
- Excellent illustration of how the conventions of Old English heroic poems (like Beowulf) were adapted to the doctrines of Christianity
- Christ's passion is converted into a heroic sacrifice as the cross reports that it watched him - the young hero - strip himself naked, as if preparing for battle, and bravely ascend it
- In the same vein, the cross presents itself as a thane (retainer) forced into disloyalty, as it watches - and participates in - the crucifixion, unable to avenge its beloved lord
- In addition to heroic poetry, the Dream of the Rood recalls Old English genres such as the riddle and the elegy.
- In riddle fashion, the cross asks "What am I?"
- That started as a tree, became an instrument of torture, and am now a beacon of victory, resplendent with jewels
- given jewels upon "death" like Beowulf
- One of the most striking poetic effects of the Dream of the Rood is its focus on the Incarnation, God's taking on human flesh
- The poet often juxtaposes references to Christ's humanity & divinity in the same line, thereby achieving a powerful effect of paradox, as when he tells of the approach of "the young warrior, God Almighty"
- It is noteworthy that the aspect of Christ's humanity which the poet stresses is the heroism rather than the pathos which was to become so prominent in later medieval poetry & art
- this heroism provides a context for a cryptic passage at the end of the poem, where the dreamer refers to Christ's "journey" to bring "those who before suffered burning" victoriously to heaven.
- post - apocalyptic=>heaven on earth
- big enough to see all over the earth
- takes up the whole earth
- only the good get to be there to witness
- victory tree - victory over the bad
- narrator admits he's a human who sins, not a bad person
- 450-1066 - Norman Invasion
- 1066 - Battle of Hastings between Norman French Duke William II of Normandy and Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson
- Beowulf, The Dream of the Rood, Deor, and the Wanderer
- Heroic code:
- Values strength, courage, and loyalty in warriors
- Values hospitality, generosity, and political skills in kings
- Values ceremoniousness in women
- Values good reputation in all people
- Traits of a warrior
- Boastful
- Doesn't act cultured
- Too busy for love
- Motive: honor, fame
- Barbaric
- Fatalistic: the belief that all events are predetermined by fate and are therefore unattainable
- Agent of God's will
- Saw fate as an active agent that determine outcome
- "Doom" simply refers to your fate, not necessarily something bad; "undoomed" means your fate hasn't been decided yet
- Beowulf's swimming competition
- Themes:
- Nature is often inhospitable
- Endurance
- Loneliness
- Betrayal
- Saw life begin and end in darkness & cold (life cycle)
- Dichotomy before Pagan & Christian duty to Church and women
- Division or contrast between 2 that are represented as being opposed or entirely difficult
- Found in the late 10th Century collection
- The poem consists of the lament of the scop Deor, who lends his name to the poem, which was given no formal title; modern scholars do not actually believe Deor to be the author of this poem.
- In the poem, Deor's lord has replaced him.
- exile from luxury, respect, and popularity
- Deor mentions various figures from Germanic mythology and reconciles his own troubles with the troubles these figures faced, ending each section with the refrain "that passed away, so may this."
- The poem Deor begins with the struggles and misfortunes of a character named Weland.
- The poem consists of 42 alliterative lines
- The refrain (repeated part)
- The remedy happened one way or another in each situation
- Continous flow of time erases all pain
- Favorite Anglo-Saxon topic
- Genre: Poetry, Lament, elergy
- Plot Summary:
- The poet gives a list of historical characteristics and their fates. He keeps saying "That has passed, and may this too." In the end he tells the reader that he had been a bard to Heodiningas but he was replaced by another, his lands and office taken away. He ends with "That has passed, and so may this too."
- Themes
- Comitatus bond
- Loneliness
- Lack of connection
- Undeserved suffering
- Loss
- Identity
- How does this book embody the characteristics of the time period?
- Acceptance of fate
- Need to connect with a lord and a mead hall
- Lament of the exciled
- Others
- The Seafarer
- The Wanderer
- Beowulf
- Fatalism
- Futility & conselation
- selvic - linings to tragedies
- Scop=sharper (Sidney?)
- Proving he's a poet by knowing his stories
- Power to shape events
- Elergy
- forty lines
- gives voice to the suffering of the scop who has been replaced by a rival after years of service to his lord
- speaker self-consolation takes a meditative form as he looks back upon 5 instances of suffering inflicted upon Germanic heros for the comfort that he is not the only one who has had to face loss and despair
- By recalling the misfortunes that fell upon Gods and heroes, Deor opens that suffering is the common lot of man and that every evil passes with time
- He hopes that the pain of his rejection will pass away just like the sorrows of the Germanic legends passed eventually--
Who long stood high as the Heodening's bard
Doer my name, dear to my lord.
Mild was my service for many a winter,
Kingly my king till heorrenda came
skilful in song and unsurping the land-right
which one my gracious lord granted to me
that evil ended. So also may this!"
- Towards the end, the poem moves beyond a Pagan endurance of the rule of fate and asserts a conventional Christian belief that the divine providence is the protector of all
- Deor's lament is not just purely personal but also universal as the sense of loss, estrangement, and solitude strongly discernible in the poem makes the hearer or the reader sympathize with the speaker of the poem
- The elegiac poems of the Anglo-Saxon age with their stress on loss, exile, and lamentation along with the belief in the im permanence of earthly pleasures, leaves upon us an impression that is dismal.
- these elergies are the songs of suffering souls which give them a lyrical and more importantly a universal appeal because "our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thoughts."
The Wanderer
- An elegy
- Lament that contrasts past happiness with present sorrow and remark on how fleeting is the former
- Male bonds and fellowship especially with the mead hall
- Is an Old English poem preserved only in an anthology known as the Exeter Book, a manuscript dating from the late 10th Century
- It counts 115 lines of alliterative verse.
- Love poetry of the heroic society
- Love between lord and retainer
- Opens to an appeal to Christian concept asking for God's mercy
- Body of the poem is a first person account from the wanderer's voice.
- Based on more pagan values of more earthly joys
- 2 major parts
- Wanderer laments his personal situation
- Once a member of a warrior band but his Lord dies and leaves him in the excile
- Dreams that he clasps and kisses his lord
- Incense of nature (bird, air, etc)
- More general nature of transitiveness of earthly things
- Last five lines the reader is urged to seek the comfort of heaven
- Degrees of Christian to Pagan views
- Christian allegory ---> interpreted to reveal hidden meaning, typically moral or political
- Lines 8-19 depicting a bionic hero
- feelings but he has to find them in his heart.
- Line 24
- Winter, season is an objective correlative for grief
- Line 37-44
- Sad dreams about when his lord was alive
- dreaming about what once was
- Lines 54-55
- Litotes - ironical understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary.
- Line 65
- Liminal space - Liminality is the in-between moments, the space between an inciting incident in a story and the protagonist's resolution. It is often a period of discomfort, of waiting, and of transformation. Your characters' old habits, beliefs, and even personal identity disintegrates
- going inbetween in the time when he's talking about who is me but a wise man does this...
- An elergy:
- lament that contrasts past happiness with present sorrow and remark on how fleeting is the former
- Elegies for the most part focus on male bonds & companionship, particularly the joys of the mead hall
- Old English poetry as a whole is almost entirely devoid of interest in romantic love between men and women and focuses instead on the bond between lord and retainer
- Plot
- Opens with an appeal to a Christian concept
- 3rd person narrator speaks of Wanderer's request for God's mercy
- Body of the poem
- primarily 1st person account in the wanderer's voice
- reflects more Pagan values in its regret for the loss of earthly joys
- framing emotions and mindsets in sense of nature
- winter
- the sea
- icy water
- 2 Major parts
- The wanderer laments his personal situation:
- He was once a member of a warrior band, but his lord - his beloved "gold friend" - has died
- He is left a homeless exile
- He dreams that he "clasps and kisses" his lord, but then awakens to see only the dark waves, the snow, and the sea birds
- Turns from personal narrative to a more general statement of the transitions of all earthly things
- The speaker (possibly someone other than the wanderer at this point) looking at the ruin of ancient buildings, is moved to express the ancient Roman motif known as "ubi sunt" (Latin for "Where are")
- Where has the horse gone? Where the man? Where the giver of gold?/Where is the feasting place? And where the pleasures of the hall?"
- In the concluding 5 lines, the reader is urged to seek comfort in heaven
- Men keep emotions to themselves - want to appear tough rather than vulnerable
- admirable to the stoic
- references fate (l15)
- glory found only when keeping thoughts to themselves (l18-21)
- laments that his lord has died. Emotional state represented by nature:
- "icy waves with winter in my heart"
- it's winter & season begin used as objective correlative for grief
- "Then the friendless man wakes again and sees the dark waves surging around him"
- dark waves symbolic of his emotional turmoil - sadness, grief, mourning, being lost, feeling alone
- SEA=loneliness, difficult journey metaphor
- idea of wisdom coming both with age & experience
- "for a man will not be wise before he has weathered his share of winters in the world"
- You don't understand mourning until you've felt death take someone from you
- You don't understand until you've had certain experiences in life.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- Written toward the close of the 14th century
- Genre: Hero Quest, Medieval Poetry
- Cynical, seasons
- Feudal structure
- afferent communities of kingdoms chivalry
- ideals/virtues brought together in his shield
- Arthur's court represents chivalry
- Morgana the witch sets up "false test" to try to disprove Arthur's court as chivalrous
- Lord Bertilack's test is set up opposite of Morgana's to prove Gawain's honor, which he fains the third test
- Third test is when Gawain returns to tell everyone about his failures. He could of lied but instead he tells the truth
- Fate
- Gawain knows that death awaits him, but he has to protect his honor and the honor of the Arthurian court
- Christian reference
- Instruction
- Talking with green knight
- returns to Arthur's court
- His strength comes from Jesus and Mother Mary.
- Image in the shield
- These five ways in which Gawain is virtuous are in the dexterity of his five fingers
- The perfection of his five senses
- his devotion of the five wounds of Christ
- his reflection of the five ways of Mary in Christ
- and finally, five virtues:
- generosity
- fellowship
- chastity
- courtesy
- and charity
- Green - traditional nature/birth. Love and base desires of man. Spirits in folk lore
- Shift from focus on Heroic code to chivalric code
- Pagan & Christian aspects are more even here, parallel
- unlike Beowulf, which is more Pagan
- Tests, element of Divine, mystical/larger than life elements (Grendel & Green Knight)
- Boasts about each other & are so modest - unlike heroic code
- Fate not as prominent in Sir Gawain & the Green Knight.
- Plot summary:
- King Arthur's court is challenged to a game on Christmas by a Green Knight. They each get one swing with an ax, King Arthur's man will go first. Sir Gawain takes up the challenge and when he decapitates the Green Knight, the Green Knight just gets back up and rides out. One year later Sir Gawain goes to find him to fulfill the other side of the bargain. When he wanderes around he comes across the castle of Sir Bertilak. Bertilak takes him in and introduces him to his wife. They decide to play a game. Whatever Bertilak gains in his hunting he trades with whatever Gawain gets in the castle. The first day a deer is exchanged for one kiss. On the second day a boar is exchanged for two kisses. On the third day a fox is exchanged for 3 kisses but Gawain hides the green girdle Bertilak's wife gives him. The girdle should keep him safe. Gawain leaves to find the Green Chapel and is mocked by the Green Knight because he flinched the first time. He is not killed. He goes home with the green girdle to King Arthur's court. He is humbled by the experience and became a real knight.
- Theme:
- Chivalric Code
- Chivalric romance
- How does this book embody the characteristics of the time period?
- Lives out the medieval chivalric code
- Moved from paganism to Christianity
- Respect for the church, respect for Mary, the five pointed star
- Cycle of sin and redemption
- Others:
- Arthurian cycle
- Ties A Knight's Tale
- Part 1:
- What time of year is it when the tale begins?
- What is significant about the tale beginning when it does?
- What is Arthur wishing for?
- When (at what exact moment) does the Green Knight appear?
- What color is the Green Knight?
- What challenge does the Green Knight issue to Arthur's court?
- How do Arthur and his court respond? why?
- How does Gawain respond? why? what is the outcome of Gawain's response?
- How would you describe Gawain? Compare his attributes to those of Beowulf?
- Part II
- How is nature depicted in this work?
- Why the elaborate descriptions of Gawain's dress and armor?
- How does Gawain prepare to meet the Green Knight a second time?
- What colors are associated with Gawain?
- At what time of year does Gawain set forth?
- When does he discover Lord Bertilak's castle?
- How is he received?
- How does Gawain treat the women of the castle?
- What game does the Bertilak (the Host) propose to Gawain?
- Part III
- What does the Host (Lord Bertilak) hunt on the first day? the second? the third?
- What's Gawain up to in the castle while his Host goes hunting?
- How do the various hunts parallel Gawain's experiences in the castle?
- What does Gawain exchange with Bertilak after the first day? the second? the third?
- What's different about the third exchange between Gawain and the Host?
- Part IV
- What temptations does Gawain face on his way to the Green Chapel?
- How does Gawain respond?
- What is the Green Chapel?
- What is the Green Knight doing when Gawain arrives? how does he greet Sir Gawain?
- The Green Knight swings his axe three times at Gawain. What happens with each swing?
- Is the green girdle really magical?
- What does the Green Knight reveal about himself? What's Gawain's reaction?
- How much of Gawain's testing has been Bertilak's doing? Morgan's?
- What is the reaction of Arthur's court to Gawain's account of his adventures?
- What lesson is learned here? By whom? Who teaches it? Why?
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