3.

Old English religious poetry: ‘The Dream of the Rood’

(Religious poetry – general characteristics)

For Anglo-Saxon poetry it is difficult to draw a line between “heroic” and “Christian” because the
best poetry crosses that boundary. Much of the Old English poetry have something that is linked
with religion. Even works such as ‘The Wanderer’ an ‘The Safer’ are now recognized as more pious
in their messages. Although, much of Christianity was still new, Old English poets adapted their
own language with its traditional themes to this material. Historically, Anglo-Saxons had a tradition
of oral poetry, but Christianity offered them opportunity of writing down stories. Old English
religious poetry is similar to historical and doctrinal and deals only with teaching basic Christian
beliefs.
Religious poetry flourished in northern England, in Northumbria, throughout the 8th century,
though most of it survived only in West Saxon transcriptions of the late 10th century.
The Schools of Caedmon and Cynewulf – general characteristics
Much of this religious poetry is anonymous, but the names of two poets are known: Caedmon, the
first English poet known by name, and Cynewulf . They wrote on biblical and religious themes.
According to Bede Caedmon became the founder of a school of Christian poetry, and this period of
Old English poetry is called "Caedmonian". Caedmon stands for a group of poets/singers whose
work we feel to be earlier in tone and feeling, though not always in age, than that which we know
to be Cynewulf’s.
All poems that were not assigned to Caedmon were given to Cynewulf, the poet of second phase
of Old English Christian poetry. Cynewulf, the first Anglo-Saxon poet to sign his work. Four poems
bear his name: Christ, Juliana, Elene, The Fates of the Apostles. With Cynewulf, Anglo-Saxon
religious poetry moves beyond biblical paraphrase into the didactic, the devotional, and the
mystical.
Both schools are Christian and it is safe to say, that in both groups, there is hardly a single poem in
which the whole passages are not imbued with the spirit of Beowulf. One of the most important
poems written under the influence of the school of the Cynewulf was ‘The Dream of the Rood’.
The greatest distinction between two schools, is that Cynewulf and his group show their power of
assimilating foreign literary influences.
‘The Dream of the Rood’ – literary analysis
The poem appears in a late tenth-century manuscript found in Vercelli Book in northern Italy.
It is one of the finest poems in the English language, might have been composed at the end of
seventh century by poet whose name we do not know. Some passages from the poem were
carved in runes on the famous Ruthwell Cross in Dumfries in southern Scotland in the 8th century.
The relation between the poem and the cross is unknown.
The poem is set in the dream, and the narrator has a vision of rood or cross, and it is beautiful, he
can see that it is not were criminal was executed. He can see the ugliness of his soul compared
with the beauty of the rood. The rood has five stones that symbolize five wounds of Christ. The
jeweled cross symbolizes the victory of Christianity.
And then he begin to see the scars of the sin on the cross, the wounds of execution of Christ. The
wounds of the rood and the wounds of Christ are one. Then the rood tells him its own story, the
story how an inosent man was murdered and that man was Christ.
He calls him a young hero saying that he defited death and that he is not a victom. He compares
Christ to warrior whose trophy is the cross. ‘Rood’is not same as ‘cross’ because the word ‘rood’
refers to a ceremonial symbol of the crucifixion rather than the actual pieces of wood. In the poem
the rood and Christ become one and the rood is helpping Christ in his war. The rood participates in
a suffering of Christ and in his victory.The Christ did battle on the rood to save us from our sins.
The rood, after victory, is honored by mankind, and it becomes a simbol of Christianity. The
dreamer is now responsible to share the story.
Throught the poem we can see suffering and glory,darkness and light, death and life, culminate in
the final triumphant image.
There are two speakers in the poem, the Dreamer who dreams this story and the Rood. The
Dreamer’s words have a homiletic tone in comparison to the Rood’s speech full of passion and
intensity. The Dream Vision first appears in ‘’The Dream of the Rood’’, it is a mystic dream vision,
in which narrator talks of his experience in dream and that changes his behaviour or viewpoint.
This form become popular in later medieval poetry.
In poem we can also see prosperia, which is a figure of speech in which an imaged, absent or dead
person or thing is represented as speaking. (Prosopopoeia is used mostly to give another
perspective on the action being described). The poem is an epiphany – a mystic dream vision of
Christ, or the description of the birth of faith in man. The beauty of the form of the poem is the
changing point of view in the narration. Unlike the elegies, there is no the so- called formula ubi
sunt.
The Dream of the Rood interweaves biblical, liturgical, and devotional material with the language
of heroic poetry and elegy, and something of the ambiguity and wordplay of the riddles, it is one
of the most carefully constructed poems in Old English

*‘A symbol of death now becomes a symbol of life’*