WONDER and AWE in the Old English Martyrology: Expression, Feeling Norms and Narrative Motifs

Abstract

ABSTRACT Following recent research on the conceptualisation and expression of amazement and on cognitive models for wonder and awe, this paper examines these two emotional responses in the Old English Martyrology (OEM). Using different Old English lexical resources, and a bilingual edition of the OEM this paper analyses these two aesthetic emotions with the aim of determining what role they played in the emotional community where this text was composed. Additional aims include establishing whether there is a secular dimension to these emotions and whether it is censored in this text. This research argues that, while the author of the OEM does employ the terms in these two lexical domains in instances of emotional education, the text also contains examples where these emotional experiences are more consistent with how they are described in contemporary aesthetic emotion models, unlike other Old English hagiographical writings, where these emotions are fundamentally religious and spiritual responses.