English Genesis Research Articles

Rebel Angels: Space and Sovereignty in Anglo-Saxon England

Rebel Angels: Space and Sovereignty in Anglo-Saxon England

Speculative Mythology: Tolkien's Adaptation of Winter and the Devil in Old English Poetry

Speculative Mythology:Tolkien's Adaptation of Winter and the Devil in Old English Poetry Joshua T. Parks Not only do J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings include fairy tales, mythological adventures, linguistic exercises, and theological reflections; they also provided their author with a place for scholarly play. Tolkien's fictional work often serves as a philological sandbox, free from the demands and criticisms of a scholarly audience. For example, as several scholars have noted, the Gothic names of the Rohirrim's distant ancestors (Vidugavia, Vidumavi, etc.) suggest that the Rohirrim's real-world counterparts, the Anglo-Saxons, might have had Gothic ancestry.1 This conjecture is much safer hidden in fictional genealogies than it would be in a scholarly publication. In this essay, I explore another example of such scholarly play: Tolkien's treatment of the relationship between the devil and winter in Old English poetry. The Old English Genesis, elegies like The Wanderer and the Seafarer, and hagiographies like Andreas all suggest an implicit connection between Satan's desire to hold a throne in the north, Satan's role as a spiritual opponent to the saints, and winter weather's parallel roles as both northerly menace and spiritual threat. Tolkien borrows these themes in his invented mythology and adds an explicit, causal connection between them. His Satan figure, Melkor (later named Morgoth),2 is "a dark lord upon a dark throne in the North" who created temperature extremes and who brings spiritual and physical danger as well as a Fell Winter upon his realm (S 205). The Old English poems considered below might compel an imaginative reader to wonder what a mythological connection between the north-dwelling devil and northerly weather might look like. Melkor is Tolkien's answer to that question, an answer that he also incorporates into the theology and aesthetics of his mythology as a whole. Winter and the Old English Devil: A Shadowy Link Before turning to Tolkien, I will discuss his raw material: the characteristic and overlapping ways in which the devil and winter are described in Old English poetry. The devil appears in the Old English Genesis, especially Genesis B, as a rebellious vassal of God who wishes to set up him strenglicran stol… / heahran on heofonum "a stronger throne for himself, higher in the heavens" (ll. 273–74).3 According to Genesis [End Page 163] A, he wants this throne to be on norð-dæle / ham and heah-setl heofena rices "a home and a high throne in the northern regions of the kingdom of heaven" (ll. 32–33). Genesis B adds further details: he will build a trymede getimbro "fortified building" in the west and norð (l. 275). His plan is frustrated; he is thrown down to hell before he has a chance to build this northern fortress. But these two texts—one of English origin, one translated from Old Saxon—suggest at least a shadowy connection in the poetic tradition between Satan and the north. On its own, this idea is not uniquely English or even Germanic. It has roots in the Vulgate's story of Lucifer's fall, in which Lucifer declares, sedebo in monte testamenti, in lateribus aquilonis "I will sit on the mount of the testament, on the walls of the North" (Isaiah 14:13). Augustine clarifies this theme, quoting from Isaiah 14 in his commentary on Psalm 47: contrarius solet esse aquilo sion: sion quippe in meridie, aquilo contra meridiem. quis es iste aquilo , nisi qui dixit: ponam sedem meam ad aquilonem, et ero similis altissimo? (Augustine 47.3.24) Zion is accustomed to opposing the north: Zion, indeed, is in the south, and the north is opposed to the south. Who is that "north," other than the one who says, "I will put my seat in the north, and I will be like the Most High"? Here, Satan not only aspires to live in the north; he is the north. Alfred L. Kellogg points also to Augustine's Liber de Gratia Novi Testamenti, in which "the deprivation of grace… is symbolized by the north wind," and suggests that this association became a kind of received wisdom...

The situation of conflicting loyalties and the Old English Genesis’ version of the story of the Fall

The paper addresses the idiosyncratic version of the story of the Fall presented in the Old English poem Genesis from the perspective of religious and political moral of Early Medieval Society. The methodology of the research bases on the analysis of the social functions of texts. To understand the didactic message of the poem the poet’s conception of “fall” should be looked attentively. “The Fall” of angels and men is presented in the text as the failure of choice, due to overconfidence or the appellation to the wrong authority. As could be seen from historical sources the problem of choice in the situation of conflicting loyalties was essential for Anglo-Saxon society. Person’s behavior in this situation was judged according to the results of his or her actions, not according to his or her initial reasons.

Telling Tales and Crafting Books: Essays in Honor of Thomas H. Ohlgren ed. by Alexander L. Kaufman, Shaun F.D. Hughes, and Dorsey Armstrong

ALEXANDER L. KAUFMAN, SHAUN F.D. HUGHES, and DORSEY ARMSTRONG, eds., Telling Tales and Crafting Books: Essays in Honor of Thomas H. Ohlgren. Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture: Festschriften, Occasional Papers, and Lectures Vol. 24. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2016. Pp. 386. ISBN: 978-1-58044219-0. $99.Telling Tales and Crafting Books celebrates the works and interests of Purdue University's eminent medievalist Thomas Ohlgren. Like the scholar himself, the volume is remarkably coherent, embracing collaboration and exploring topics deeply, while also providing insightful introductory surveys for new audiences. Kaufman, Hughes, and Armstrong have mirrored Ohlgren's interests, teaching, and deep learning in the volume quite remarkably. The book is divided into three parts, representative of Ohlgren's major research interests: 'Old English and the North'; 'Robin Hood'; and 'Books and Literature.' Each section contains at least one essay suitable for use in undergraduate classrooms, and several would be excellent for graduate courses. The research and learning on display in each piece is impressive, providing readers with extensive annotations and discussion, alongside deep bibliographies.Kaufman's 'Introduction' (1-19) reveals many of these connections, and provides an excellent overview of Ohlgren's fascination with story and narrative: the value and potency of the tale in 'its ability to create a lasting impression on readers, both medieval and modern' (1). For readers whose exposure to Ohlgren's work has been within a particular period, author, or area of study, this is helpful context for understanding the scholar and, of course, the range of essays in the volume. Moreover, Ohlgren's exploration of the tale's potential to engage and delight allows Kaufman et al. to present the volume as continuing the work of both scholar and tale: the essays can be read as individual pieces, of course, but taken together they become a conversation. The volume encourages readers to become medieval: an active audience that recognizes that 'the more one invested oneself in the tale, the more mirth-entertainment, education, consolation, inspiration-one could possibly have as a result' (3).Part I of Telling Tales and Crafting Books focuses upon Anglo-Saxon (and Old Norse) tales and art. The five essays in 'Old English and the North' are all fascinating, but Eric R. Carlson's 'Grendel as Novelistic Outlaw-Hero: A Girardian Reading' (23-47) is a standout for its accessibility. The essay not only addresses a common classroom dilemma-student dislike for the hero Beowulf and contranarrative sympathy, even admiration, for the villain Grendel-but also provides an explanation that will challenge but ultimately reward undergraduates. The next essay is better suited for graduate study or engagement by specialist scholars: Shaun F.D. Hughes' 'The Evolution of Monster Fights: From Beowulf versus Grendel to Jon Gudmundssson laerSi versus Snaefjalladraugur and Beyond' (49-91) connects the motif of wrestling an undead creature-the draugur, a ghost inhabiting a material form-to the Beowulf story by highlighting the uncivilized wilderness spaces in which these combats occur. Thomas Ohlgren's fascination with the North has not been limited to the literary: as Kaufman reminds us throughout the 'Introduction,' one of Ohlgren's great contributions has been insistence on context, and his Bodleian Slide Collection provided many students and colleagues with visual reminders that medieval literature used art as well as words to tell tales (3-4). Thus, the next two essays in this section, J.A. Jackson's 'Salvation Twice Told: Idolatry, Typology, and Repentance in Genesis B' (93-117) and Molly A. Martin's 'Vision and Sex in the Iconography of the Old English Genesis Manuscript' (119-38) focus on the confluence of word and image. Martin's 'Vision and Sex' follows Jackson's piece, a slightly problematic organizational choice since Jackson's essay references photographs of the Genesis manuscript printed several pages later in Martin. …

Faith and Forfeiture in the Old EnglishGenesis A

Previous articleNext article No AccessFaith and Forfeiture in the Old English Genesis AScott Thompson SmithScott Thompson SmithPennsylvania State University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Modern Philology Volume 111, Number 4May 2014 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/674414 Views: 73Total views on this site © 2014 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Helene Scheck, Reform and Resistance: Formations of Female Subjectivity in Early Medieval Ecclesiastical CultureReform and Resistance: Formations of Female Subjectivity in Early Medieval Ecclesiastical Culture. Helene Scheck. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008. Pp. viii+238.

<i>Helene Scheck</i>, Reform and Resistance: Formations of Female Subjectivity in Early Medieval Ecclesiastical Culture<i>Reform and Resistance: Formations of Female Subjectivity in Early Medieval Ecclesiastical Culture</i>. Helene Scheck. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008. Pp. viii+238.

Wonders and Wisdom: Anglo-Saxons and the East

What the Anglo-Saxons “knew” about Asia and its inhabitants was drawn from Biblical exegesis, saints' lives, and other texts derived from Latin sources. Numerous Old English and Anglo-Latin texts of varied genre and contents give evidence of an intense interest in the East that serves both to define Anglo-Saxon origins and to depict outsiders of varying types that are made to perform as “Other” to members of the Anglo-Saxon community. Ælfric follows Augustine and Isidore in his division of the world into three regions whose people are descended from the biblical Ham, Shem, and Cham; the division is depicted in Anglo-Saxon world maps and referenced in poetry such as the Old English Genesis. The Beowulf-manuscript contains several texts about “the East” including the prose Wonders of the East, Letter of Alexander to Aristotle, and Life of Saint Christopher, as well as the poems Judith and Beowulf. The outlandish creatures described and illustrated in each of these texts figure as outsiders to Anglo-Saxon culture and function to structure masculinity and social cohesion. Images of monstrosity are interwoven with figurations of femininity to bring the ideation of the “other” closer to home. Old English texts that refer to “the East” have more to do with Anglo-Saxon preoccupations with locating themselves geographically and temporally in Christian Europe than with historical realities. “The East” becomes at once monstrous, marvellous, and mysterious, a place of the imagination in quasi-historical accounts ranging from the Letter of Alexander to Beowulf, each of which depicts a realm whose wild characters and characteristics opposed the wished-for stability of roles and functions “at home” among the English. With all of these figurations existing together in a single manuscript, it becomes possible to argue that Asia as a whole functions in the same position to medieval Christian Europe in a comprehensive fashion, anticipating the “orientalism” of the post-medieval period.

Heaven, Hell and Middangeard: The Presentation of the Universe in the Old English Genesis A

Heaven, Hell and Middangeard: The Presentation of the Universe in the Old English Genesis A Since the times of Antiquity, people have looked up to the sky and developed various conceptions of Heaven and Hell. Already in the ancient Egypt people developed the tripartite conception of universe with earth placed between the Heaven inhabited by gods above and Hell below. The Old English poetic text of Genesis (MS Junius 11; compilation dated to the 10th century) presents the earthly paradise, Hell and Middangeard (or the middle earth). Both Genesis A and B that comprise the poem indeed show a single and consistent descriptions of cosmos. The overt consistency may well seem as interesting as the tradition that the poem draws upon as well as distorts. The universe found in the poem is a fusion of the Christian religious learning as well as Germanic tradition. The idea that marries Heaven, earth and Hell in the poetic sequence of OE Genesis is the concept of hall and anti-hall, city and anti-city. The aim of the following paper is to investigate the modes of this presentation of these parts of the universe by the analysis of the clusters of meaning that are associated with hall and city.

Doctrine and Paradigm: Two Functions of the Innovations in Genesis B

The Old English Genesis B has received a great deal of attention for its apparent mitigation of Eve's guilt. This theme has, however, been variously interpreted by modern critics. Sceptics cannot d...

Old English þa “now that” and the Integrity of Beowulf

In the Old English Genesis A, when the dove released by Noah finds land and green woods, it fails to return to the ark: nolde gladu aefre under salwed bord syððan aetywan on þellfaestenne, þa hire þ...

LEGALIZING THE FALL OF MAN

The Early Middle Irish Adam and Eve story in the tenth- or eleventh-century biblical poem Saltair na Rann includes an exchange between the devil and the snake in paradise. The devil seeks to persuade the snake to corporeal cohabitation in order to further his desire to bring about the fall of Eve and Adam. Lucifer's argument to the snake stresses the snake's hierarchical superiority to Adam, an idea that, as Brian Murdoch points out in his commentary on the poem, 'is a simple reprise of Lucifer's' earlier argument against subservience to God.1 But Lucifer's encouragement of the snake is capped by the singular plea, 'denamm cotach is carddess' ('let us make a bargain and treaty') (lines 1150).2 To this, the pragmatic serpent responds, 'Cia luag nom tha, fiad each thur / ... ar failti duit im churp chain, / cen nach locht dom chomaittreib?' ('What reward have I, before every host ... for welcoming you into my fair body, to live together with me without any fault?') (lines 1165-8). The reply: fame. The devil cunningly promises that his union with the snake will 'be continuously mentioned' in ages to come ('bid do gres ar n-anmnigud', line 1176).3 The devil offers an assurance partly based on form. The language he uses, in referring to making a treaty or a proper arrangement, or an alliance - however one translates 'cotach' - elevates the discussion to a formal level, as he offers the snake a verbal contract: if you will do this for me, I will assure you of this result, or, you give me that, and I will give you this.4 The legalistic language of the encounter marks a convention in perception of the Fall, one visible in another early medieval Insular poem on the Fall, the perhaps tenth-century Old English Genesis B, and in legal texts themselves.5The Fall has a long history of reference in law, the Irish aspects of which Damian Bracken explores in his study of 'The Fall and the law in early Ireland'. Bracken demonstrates that 'clerics with an interest in the explanations of the opening of Genesis were involved in writing the laws of early Ireland' and that lawyers subsequently maintained a 'very practical use of the theology of the Fall', using it as a prime example:The Fall and its consequences are the basis for discussion of matters like free will and perhaps that most Christian of ideals - the attempt to go beyond law and its technicalities to a psychological consideration of motive and intent. The early lawyers use the theology of the Fall in just this context: whether the accused was incited to commit the crime, whether he committed the crime with malice aforethought, whether he was fully aware of all circumstances before entering into an agreement.6Texts concerning the rules of contracts demonstrate especially well this practical applicability in a central area of the law. Fergus Kelly in his study of early Irish law asserts that 'The commonest legal act in early Irish society was no doubt the verbal contract or cor bel (lit. putting of lips) often referred to simply as cor. This term covers all commercial undertakings, as well as agreements to marry, to foster, to engage in co-operative farming, to enter clientship,' and so on.7 One collection of early Irish texts on contracts, what Neil McLeod identifies as 'perhaps the central text on the subject', is Di Astud Chor, On the securing of Contracts', which McLeod dates to the eighth century, at least in the compilation as it now exists.8 Perhaps the best known and the largest of surviving Old Irish legal texts is, however, the Senchas Mar, or 'Great Tradition', which has a substantial introduction that has also been dated to 'probably' the eighth century, though at least part of it pre-dates Di Astud Chor? Both Di Astud Chor and the introduction to the Senchas Mar utilize references to Lucifer's and to Adam and Eve's fall to confirm a legal point, while both poetic treatments of the Fall, the Early Middle Irish Saltair na Rann and the Old English Genesis B, employ contractual language similar to that in the law texts. …

Additional Remarks on the Middle English Genesis and Exodus

1Uppsala University

Additional Remarks on the Middle English Genesis and Exodus

1Uppsala University

Unfulfilled promise: the rubrics of the Old English prose Genesis

The Old English prose Genesis contains a series of innovative rubrics, unparalleled in the Vulgate tradition, which divide the story of Genesis into a series of holy biographies of the patriarchs Noah, Abraham and Joseph. These rubrics, added to the text in the eleventh century, use formulaic language derived from contemporary documents such as Anglo-Saxon wills and thereby regulate how Genesis was to be read and interpreted by an aristocratic layman or novice monk. The rubrics blend ancient Hebrew narratives, stories of the saints and the legal conventions familiar to the reader in order to portray ‘sacred history’ as an unbroken, legally sanctioned inheritance. They emphasize the Covenant of God with Abraham and the people of Israel and assure the contemporary reader that he too will inherit an unfulfilled promise manifested in God's covenant with the patriarchs.

Words Devilish and Divine: Eve as Speaker in Genesis B

This essay argues that the Old English Genesis B is textured by a linguistic density that allows conflicting ideological concerns to come into play simultaneously, resulting in a re-evaluation of the deeply masculinist Christian hierarchy that lies at the heart of the Fall story. This perspective explicitly challenges a traditional symbolism that limits Eve to the "senses" and privileges Adam as "reason," and counters the many analyses of Genesis B that uphold such categories, perpetuating a characterization of Eve as weak, innately sinful, and inferior to Adam. what has often been noticed as the psychological realism of the poem applies not only to its portrayal of the anguish of choice, but works as well to dismantle static, deeply gendered interpretations. By reading closely what seem to be the poet's deliberate efforts to juxtapose "thick," ambiguous verbal situations with speeches of simplicity and clarity spoken by Eve, I suggest that Eve emerges here as a woman of intelligence and personal responsibility, one who demonstrates both honesty and intellectual and spiritual freedom.

The Old English Genesis B poet: Bilingual or interlingual?

ABSTRACTAlthough the celebrated 1875 conjecture of Sievers hypothesizing an Old Saxon Genesis source for the translation of the Old English Genesis B (or Later Genesis) was confirmed by the 1894 find of Zangemeister, the question of the native language of the translator of the Old Saxon Genesis remains. The Genesis B evidence is reconsidered here from the viewpoint of contemporary empirical data to ascertain whether the translator was bilingual or interlingual, the former putatively associated with a native (Old Englishman in this case), the second with a second language learner (of Old English). The Old English data contrasted with the character of Old Saxon and configurated with extrapolations from differing cognitive strategies argue for an Anglo-Saxon provenance of the Genesis B poet.

Loyalty and obedience in the Old English Genesis and the interpolation of Genesis B into Genesis A

Loyalty and obedience in the Old English Genesis and the interpolation of Genesis B into Genesis A

The ‘Variegated Obit’ as an Historiographic Motif in Old English Poetry and Anglo-Latin Historical Literature

The object of this paper is to identify a particular stylistic feature in the Old English Genesis A, to point out its affinities in Anglo-Latin historical literature (particularly in the historical writings of Byrhtferth of Ramsey), and to discuss the implications of those affinities. In conclusion I propose to discuss the literary history of this motif and some occurrences in other Old English poems — notably in Beowulf. I will thus move from fairly mechanical problems of source-study and stylistic affinity to some important ideological and literary issues, but unfortunately the more important issues are also more difficult to resolve.

The metre of Genesis B

Genesis B has been almost completely ignored in studies of Old English prosody, most notably by the modern ‘schools’ of Alan Bliss and John C. Pope. Bliss regarded the work, a 617-line interpolation in the Old English Genesis, as ‘untrustworthy’ for the purpose of metrical examination, while Pope excluded it from his examination of Old English hypermetric verse ‘because it is translated from Old Saxon, and retains some of the peculiarities of the latter’. E. G. Stanley expressed similar doubts: ‘Old Saxon verse and the verse of Genesis B (which appears to be an Anglo-Saxon offshoot of it) are only with difficulty to be accommodated within any4 set of rules derived from the metrical practice of the vast majority of the Anglo-Saxon poets’. In his edition of the poem Timmer believed that a metrical comparison of lines 790–817a and the corresponding lines of the Old Saxon Genesis corroborated his view that the interpolation was the work of a continental Saxon who had transliterated the original Old English with minor adjustments, a view supported by a more recent syntactic study.

The Middle English Genesis and Exodus

The Middle English Genesis and Exodus