Secondary Reading – Judith and The Dream of the Rood

THE DREAM OF THE ROOD

 i.e., of the Cross

 considered the finest of large number of religious poems in Anglo-Saxn
 the author and date of composition are unknowns
 appears in late 10th-century manuscript located in Vercelli
o made up of Old English religious poems and sermons
 May antedate its manuscript
o Some of Rood’s speech were carved in runes on a stone cross in the 8th
century
 Ruthwell Cross – near Dumfries in southern Scotland
 The experience of the Rood = often called “tree” in the poem – its humiliation at the
hands of those who cut it down and made it into an instrument of punishment for
criminals
o Its humility wen the young hero Christ mounts it – suggestive relevance to
the condition of the Dreamer
 Dreamer = isolation and melancholy is typical of exile figures in Anglo-Saxon poetry
 For Rood, glory has replaced torment
 At end, the Dreamer’s description of Christ’s entry into heaven with the soul he has
liberated from Hell
o Reflects the Dreamer’s response to the hope that has been brought to him
 Christ and the Rood = both act in keeping with and diametrically opposed to a code
of heroic action
o Christ = heroic in mounting and passive in suffering on the Rood
o Rood = loyal to its lord, yet must participate in his death

JUDITH

 Biblical narrative inspired Anglo-Saxon poetry from beginnings

o E.g., poet Caedmon is said to have composed poetry on biblical subjects from
genesis to the Last Judgement
o Translations of biblical material
 Prose writers also produced ambitious biblical translations
o E.g., Abbot of Enysham made partial translations of many texts that he
worked into serman material
 The poetic translations are less faithful to the biblical texts, they are much freer
o They take liberties with the narrative and style of the biblical sources
o Reshping narratives
o Placing the stories within a recogniszably Germanic cultural setting
 Aelfic also drew from the Book of Judith
o This book regarded as apocryphal = not authentically a part of the Old
Testament by Protestant churches from the 16th century
o All pre- and post-Reformation Catholic readers = it was an authentic part of
the Hebrew bible
  Narrative recounts the campaign of the Babylonia king Nebuchadnezzar to punish
many subkect peoples who had refused to koin him in his successful war against
Media
o N’s general Hologernes plunders and razes many cities that resist his armys
o Others capitulate him
o Sieges the strategic Israelite town of Bethulia = blocks route to Jerusalem
 Leader of Bethulia ready to surrender, but pious, wealthy and beautiful Judith
rebukes them for their faintness of heart and promises to liberate them If they will
hold out a few days longer
 Judith prays in sackcloth and ashes then dresses and adorns herself
o Enters the camp where everyone is amazed by her beauty
o Pretends to be fleeing a doomed people and persuades Holofernes that she
will lead him to victoryover al the Israelite cities
o Holoferthe plans to go to bed with her, she has other plans
 Judith = translated from the Latin text of the bible
o Composed sometime in the 10th century
o Motives for this translation is also unknown
 The opening of the poem is lost = rest of poem freely reshaped the biblical source
and set the narrative within terms intelligible to an Anglo-Saxon Audience
 Poet stripped geographical, historical, and political complexity of its story to bare
essentials
o Confrontation between Judith and Holofernes
 Judith = leader of an embattled people up against an exultant and terrifying enemy
o Her only resources = her unfailing courage, her wits and her faith in God
 Concentrated narrative, poet colors certain episodes by employing traditional
language and formulas of Anglo-Saxon poetry
o E.g., Holofernes becomes riotous at the feast
o “the beasts of battle” anticipate and enjoy Their feast
o Cf. Beowulf 3023-27
 Judith is rewardd with Holoferne’s battle ear, not with his househould treasures as in
the biblical narrative
 Net surrounding Holofernes’s bed = he can see out but cannot be seen inside
o Technology of tyrannical power undermines Holofernes’s army in the end
o Men wait around his bed because they are afraid to wake up their leader and
lose time under attack from the Israelites
 Like Abbess Hilda =grandnieceof first Christian king of Northumbria, founded Whitby,
a double house for monks and nuns in 657 and ruled over it for 22 years
 Judith is one of the women of power in Anglo-Saxon history and literarture
 St Helena = moterh of the emperor Constantine the Great
o Elene = leads a roman army to the hOly Land to discover the Cross on which
Christ was crucified

Fell, Christine – Women in Anglo-Saxon England

Garde, Judith N – Old English Poetry in Medieval Christian Perspective: A Doctrinal
Approach

Peer Review
 “as an account of salvation history, the unity of the codex is obvious, but the
imbalance in apparent intention, quality and style of writing suggests the thematic
relevance probably ensured the preservation of the disparate texts in each division”

Grasso, Anthony R - 'Theology and Structure in The Dream of the Rood’, Religion and
Literature (pp23-38)

https://www-jstor-org.ezphost.dur.ac.uk/stable/40059473?
sid=primo&seq=12#metadata_info_tab_contents

 Captivates readers with its controlled, dramatic style and understated expression
 Subtle catharsis = invites re-reading, remains a favourite
 The portrait of Christ the Victor-vanquished = so well balanced
o Poem read as an attempt to preclude the kinds of Christologicla heresies
which had been addressed at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 C.E
 “the dream” in the mainstream of Christian literature is about the final judgement
 Portrayal of Christ’s dual nature in concrete images
o Uses minimal theological language
o Piece withi its literary expression and structure intertwined
o Impact and message are not didactic aimed at correcting heretical though but
rather the poem presupposes belief in the tenets of faith, Christ’s salvic death
and resurrection
 Aim = appears to be to reinforce faith and to evoke an interior conversion, an
individual response to the theological concepts which define Christian faith
 Plausible source for the theology and structure = Nicene Creed
o Moves from the concept of God as light through the death, resurrection, and
second coming of christ
o Echoes phrases familiar to any Christian
o Proceeds from a summary of the tenets of faith to focus on the believers
gathered at worship
o The poem treats the salvific event and then emphasises the individual
response of the rood and the onlookers
 Prayer and poem = common pattern and purpose – to rekindle and active response
to a faith that is professed
 The Dream of the Rood may have been composed as a personal meditation on the
Creed by a monastic author
 Whatever the origin, textual evidence suggests that it is comprised of devotional
texts
 Makes more accessible the abstract theological formulae concerning Christ’s identity
and mission which are found in the Creed
 Peter Orton
o Compares the effect with that In the riddles of the Exeter Book
o Poet sought ot achieve a “continuous denouement” which deepens with
repeated readings
 The poet invites an active response and succeeds in filling the gaps left by the
theological language that evolved in formulating the Creed
 E.g., compassionate reaction to heroic suffering of “young saviour” = engenders
greater natural response to faith
 Poem seeks to catalyze reflection on one’s spiritual condition
o Line 13 = “the tree of victory was wonderful, and I stained by sin,/ wounded
sorely by iniquities”
o Vision of glorified cross = forms a vivd contrast to the things of earth,
enabling the dreamer/narrator and reader of the poem to become aware of
their spiritual condition
 Poet identifies the glorified cross guarded by hosts of angels
o Represents the ‘Lord of Creation” and Jesus Christ
 Poem expands upon the image of transcendent light contained in the Creed
 Cross adorned with gold and gems
o Liturgical association and gems = represented the sacred wounds, an
interpretation of some power
 Emphasises the tree’s living nature in account of making of cross
o Its suffering builds the pathos that leads up to Christ’s death
o Connects the description of Christ’s person and identity with the definition.
Of his earthly mission
 Context of Christian hope as the foundation from which to enter into reflection on
what sinfulness has brought about
 As a mediation on faith, The Dream of the Rood culminates in a highly symbolic
vision
o Line 122 = heavenly banquet
o Transmitted by dreamer rather than by the cross
o Dreamer undergoes an interior transformation (awareness that he is “stained
by sin”)
 As a symbol of all Christians engaged in the process of salvation, he progresses from
being a passive observer to becoming an active witness to faith
o Enlivens the phrase “the life of the world to come” – what life will be
 Works at faith through human compassion rather than rhetorical eloquence or
inducing fear of the afterlife
o Success in alternating terse and abstract credal statements into dynamic
images
  Reinforces the extra-liturgically the main purpose of the communal recitation of the
Creed
o The desire for renewed commitment on the part of the believer to the person
and mission of Christ

Herbison, Ivan – Heroism and Comic Subversion in the Old English Judith’ English Studies
(pp1-25)

Abstract
 Exhibits a more complex and ambiguous relationship to the heroic tradition that is
admitted
o Explores the functions of comic strategies
o Comic devices of parody, dramatic irony, and the grotesque undermine and
destabilise the concepts of the male hero, the feast, heroi battle and the
comitatus
 Uneasy compromise between a woman hero who acts like a man and a heroine who
plays one of the traditional female religious roles
 Judith’s essential feminity = subverts the conventional categories of male hero, her
role as protagonist challenges the subordinate function of women in heroic poetry
o Stressing her spiritual virtues, she cannot lead a comitatus, like the traditional
hero
 She is the antithesis of Holofenes – powerful commander
 Judith as moral and religious figure
 Employment of comedic devices to subvert traditional heroic values and institutions
 Comic subversions – cumulative effect
o Parody of traditional type scenes
o Dramatic iron – which undermines the concepts of hero and comitatus
o Grotesque humour
 Treatment of Holoferne’s drunken feast (15-37)
o Combination of techniques to subvert the heroic convention of the feast
o Degrades the participants and overtuns a traditional cultural symbol of
harmony
 Creates a disturbing and unsettling power
 Feelings of disquiet felt = Judith as a woman is seen to appropriate the role of hero
o Inevitably challenges traditional concepts of leadership and social institutions
o Protagonist’s strength is moral and spiritual rather than physical and her
leadership is absed on her relationship to God rather than to a comitatus
 Presence of a woman in a role conventionally belonging to men = questioning of
traditional heroic expectations
 Poem doesn’t resolve its ambigious attutde to the heroic but poses questions of the
heroic ethos
 Old English Judith confirms the Christian paradox, that with God’s help, the
unassailable can become weak
 E.G.Stanley
o “there is not muh laughter in Old English literature”
 o Judith = one of the few Old English poems that has identifiable comic elemtns
 F.J Heinemann
o Comic effects of a mock heroic treatment o fthe type-scene
 Andy Orchard
o Comments on the parodic juxtaposition of heroic formulas, and delight In the
grotesque
 Relationship between its Germanic style and biblical subject
 The clothing metaphor
o Define the relationship of Old English biblical and Hagiographical poems
 Comic devices of parody, dramatic irony and the grotesque undermine and
destabilise the concepts of the male hero, the feast and the comitatus

Content


Kaup, Judith – The Old English Judith: A Study of Poetic Style, Theological Tradition, and
Anglo-Saxon Christian Concepts

https://www-degruyter-com.ezphost.dur.ac.uk/document/doi/10.1515/ang-2016-0058/
html

 Persistent part of Anglo-saxon culture

 Turned into a heroic poem in 10th century
 Preserved in one manuscript – the early 1thc century one, follows Beowulf
 An active female,

Lee, Alvin A., - ‘Toward a Critique of The Dream of the Rood’ in Anglo-Saxon Poetry:
Essays in Appreciation (pp.163-191)
Magennis, Hugh – ‘Adaption of Biblical Detail in the Old English Judith: The Feast Scene’,
Neuphilogische Mitteilungen (pp.331-337)