Speech and Power in Old English Conversion Narratives

Abstract

Conversion is perhaps the dominant topic of Old English texts. Not only do many of the poems of Anglo-Saxon England represent large groups of heathens being converted to the Christian way of life, but they also encourage individual listeners and readers to turn back towards God after having fallen briefly away through sin. These two types of conversion, macro and micro, are similar in that they both involve a negating of all that is not Christian. Because that negation is gradual and always in need of being re-accomplished, Karl Morrison describes conversion as always being a work in progress, rather than an instantaneous transformation. Morrison argues that conversion is as much process as it is a moment of stupendous insight or absolute discovery. Rather, conversion—especially as it is represented in conversion narratives—involves constant reappraisal, and remains "part of a strategy for survival."' The macro-conversion, the instantaneous moment in which often an entire group converts, occurs in such Old English poems as Andreas, while the micro-conversion, the individual process of constant re-evaluation and re-conversion, occurs in poems such as Guthiac. The goal of both types of conversion is unity with God, an "empathetic participation in which the and 'you' bec[o]me one" (Morrison 85). This unity has two dimensions: a divine and mystical union with God and the secular and political unity of people into a Christian community. The process of both conversions involved a negotiation between Christian belief and doctrine, as embodied in biblical texts, and the application of that belief in the lives of individuals throughout what would later be called Christendom. The Anglo-Saxon use of vernacular poetry as one site of that negotiation offers an opportunity to investigate the ways in which prophetical traditions are transposed and recreated in one early medieval group of kingdoms.