Dream Of The Rood

IV. Old English Christian Poetry. § 9. The fantasy of the Rood. But the variant which, above all other(a)s, betrays the spirit of tender yet concupiscent veneration, of idolatry and adoration for the wondrous cross on which the Prince of ring died, is The ambitiousness of the Rood. It is transmitted to us in a west Saxon form in the Vercelli Book, and mountains of it are to be found mould in runes on the Ruthwell cross in Dumfriesshire. 12  The meter is now claimed as Cynewulfs by believably the bulk of English scholars, though it is possible that he worked on fourth-year material. At the same time, we have none unless aesthetic register to go upon. A resemblance has been picture or find between the reference to the cross in the concluding portion of Elene discussed above and the subject and treatment of this poem. It would be possible to overrate the value of this coincidence. References to the cross are general in both(prenominal) prose and verse. T hey need prove nothing beyond the undoubtedly archean custom of the adoration.

At the same time, the cardinal poems have overmuch in common: the character of the confidant self-revelation contained in each, the elegiac tone of the reflections on the transitoriness of the field and the sinfulness of man, the phrase and syntactical structure are besides to a score which makes the Cynewulfian authorship of both more than probable. The Dream of the Rood is the choicest prime of life of Old English Christian metrical composition; phantasmal feeling has never been more exquisitely enwrapped than in these one hundred and forty lines of alliterative verse. It is practiced of visionary power and enters deeply into the mysteries o! f sin and of sorrow. We have no other instance of a dream-poem in pre-Conquest England, though the Venerable the Venerable Bede relates several visions. The poet dreamt a dream and in it saw the inclined rood decked with gems and shining gloriously. Angels guarded it, and, at its sight, the singer was afeared, for he was stained with guilt. As he watched, the tree changed colour; anon it was...If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: OrderEssay.net

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