Words, Wit, and Wordplay in the Latin Works of the Venerable Bede

Abstract

Bede’s Latin style has been much neglected. This article attempts to fill a small portion of this lacuna with an examination of Bede’s use of wordplay in his Historia ecclesiastica, Historia Abbatum, and his commentaries on the Tabernacle, on the Temple, and on Ezra and Nehemiah. This article examines Bede’s use of paronomasia, homonymic wordplay, asteismus, multilingual wordplay, and onomastic wordplay in the above-mentioned works. It finds that wordplay is an important element of Bede’s Latin style that he employs for both rhetorical and exegetical purposes. In addition, Bede’s use of wordplay has philological benefits for modern scholars as it can help to determine the chronological order of Bede’s Historia Abbatum and the anonymous Vita Ceolfridi.