Exemplum and Refrain: The Meaning of 'Deor'

Abstract

Although Deor has long been the object of scholarly investigation, most writers on the poem have concerned themselves with the meaning of particular words and especially with the identification of the proper names in the catalogue of misfortunes which occupies more than half the poem. I want to forego for the moment the problems of literal meaning and examine the poem's overall signification as this is revealed in the relation between the exempla and the refrain, paying particular attention to the referents of pes and fisses.1 While I am not quite willing to accept Deor as 'a very sophisticated version of a charm',2 I do agree with Bloomfield that the pisses of the refrain refers to some general human concern outside the poem itself and not to Deor's individual misfortune which he describes at the end of the poem. Indeed, I am convinced that Deor is designed not to console but to teach. The five exempla and Deor's experience at the court of the Heodenings, while in themselves unique, epitomize a kind of misfortune with general if not universal relevance. The opening exempla are most obviously unified in that each reflects adversity, and so contributes in part to the tone of the poem. But the poet also carefully and more philosophically unifies the exempla by imbuing misery, regardless of its specific occurrence, with essentially the same characteristics: (i) misery has a physical and a spiritual aspect (it affects the body and the mind) and (2) misery involves isolation or separation of one kind or another. The poet reinforces that unity by appealing to what the audience knows as true: knowledge, the 'we have heard' formula, appears as a leit-motif in the poem and (by creating a context of 'that which is known') helps to establish the validity of the poet's Christian message. With the exception of the Welund and Beadohild passages (which, since even we know about them, may have been so well known that the 'we have heard' formula would have been gratuitous), the poet emphasizes the