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P. O. E. Gradon, ed.Cynewulf's “Elene” (revised edn. Exeter, 1977) is used for all quotations and line-references.
See especially Ellen F. Wright, “Cynewulf'sElene and theSingal Sacu”,NM 76 (1975), 538–549, who relates it to other series and sequences in the poem, arguing for thematic significance of these slow progressions towards truth.
It is generally held that Judas' stay in the dry pit is a liminal point in his transformation from Old Man to New Man. Whether, and in what sense he becomes a figure for Christ is a question on which no agreement has yet been reached. See Thomas D. Hill, “Sapiential Structure and Figural Narrative in the Old EnglishElene”,Traditio 27 (1971), 159–177: Catherine A. Regan, “Evangelicalism as the Informing Principle of Cynewulf'sElene”,Traditio 29 (1973), 27–52; Varda Fish, “Theme and Pattern in Cynewulf'sElene”,NM 76 (1975), 1–25; E. Gordon Whatley, “Bread and Stone: Cynewulf'sElene 611–618”,NM 76 (1975), 550–560; Thomas D. Hill, “Bread and Stone, Again:Elene 611–18”,NM 81 (1980), 252–257.
Cf. Fish (1975), p. 4: “Cynewulf transformed the search for a physical object into a quest for spiritual perception.” If this can he seen by comparing the Latin version with the Old English poem, as is claimed, then it is surprising that there is no discussion of the problem: what was Cynewulf's Latin source? See n. 34.
It is the familiar opposition Old Law-New Law; see the articles of n. 3. A very interesting examination of the use of the wordœ in the poem is found in E. Gordon Whatley, “Old English Onomastics and Narrative Art:Elene 1062”,MP 73 (1975).
Most critics seem to assume that Judas, being an Old Man, must also typologically represent the Jewish nation as a whole. This leads to severe problems in interpreting 11.419b-535. For a more persuasive account of Judas' status, see James Doubleday, “The Speech of Stephen and the Tone ofElene” inAnglo-Saxon Poetry: Essays in Appreciation, ed. L. E. Nicholson and Dolores Warwick Frese (University of Notre Dame Press, 1975).
E.g. 11.320–322a, 377, 555–557a.
See Hill (1971), p. 170 and also Jackson J. Campbell, “Cynewulf's Multiple Revelations”,Medievalia et Humanistica 3 (1972), 257–277, p. 265. Whatley (MP 73, 1975) does not deal with this word, see his n. 19. He may have overlooked it, since there are not, as he claims, sixteen occurrences of the wordœ in the poem, but eighteen (of which nine are made up by compounds withœ as a first element): 11, 198, 281, 283, 315, 393, 397, 970, 1041, 1062; 401, 513; 435; 321, 805; 506; 375, 590; 455.
This is putting it mildly. Cf. “Cynewulf identifies Elene with the missionary Church” (Regan (1973), p. 30).
Also important here is the choice of the designationEbreas over the commoner term in the poem,Iudeas. It stresses the religious nature of their confrontation (cf 11.397, 448, 559). In 1.724 the point is thus made that even a Jew talking in Hebrew can give a model exposition of the tenets of Christianity once he has accepted the truth.
Cf. Stanley B. Greenfield,The Interpretation of Old English Poems (London, 1972), p. 111: “formal features of both verse and syntax can reinforce the semantic level”.
For a general study, with many examples, of these and other kinds of word-play in medieval English see N. F. Blake,The English Language in Medieval Literature (London, 1977), ch. 5.
The title of a chapter in Greenfield (1972), which considers in detail some cases of this phenemenon, with cautionary advice not to let “the profusion of senses” get out of hand (p. 92).
See T. A. Shippey,Old English Verse (London, 1972), pp. 104–106, for an analysis of the ExeterDescent into Hell based on this principle, that “once similarity has been established, very small changes create a disproportionate effect.”
See B. C. Raw,The Art and Background of Old English Poetry (London, 1978), ch. 3, for a discussion of the relations poet-authority-audience in Old English poetry. The distribution and exact significance of Cynewulf's many references to books and writings (11.91, 155, 204, 290, 364, 373, 387, 431, 560, 654, 658, 670, 674, 825, 826, 852, 1211, 1254, 1255) have yet to be fully investigated. Some interesting remarks on the subject are made by Wright (1975), p. 540.
It may he noted that a great many words related torun occur in this poem:run (11.333, 411, 1161, 1168),hygerun (1.1098),leoðorun (1.522),wœlrun (1.28),geryne (11.280, 566, 589, 812),gastgeryne (11.189, 1147) andwordgeryne (11.289, 323). Could there be any connection with the rune-passage?
Cf. 11.963 and 1304.
See George Philip Krapp, ed.The Vercelli Book (New York, 1932), note to 1.293 (p. 136) for the various emendations and rewritings of line 293 that have been proposed and put into the text. Gradon, in a footnote, adduces reasons not to emend. A further reason may be that the Latin source (at least in the St Gall 225 version: see n. 34) doesnot have the wordomnem.
The more or less violent physical overtones in the verbwiðweorpan, suggesting a deliberate, though ungodly, act of will, are another pointer.
A definite improvement on the source, with its less climacticmortuos vestros — in mortem.
There is nothing in the source corresponding to 1.296a and 1.297a.
See Robert Stepsis and Richard Rand, “Contrast and Conversion in Cynewulf'sElene”,NM 70 (1969), 273–282, for the seminal study of this theme; an independent reading of the poem, which identifies the same theme, making it part of a somewhat rigid structure, is presented by Daniel G. Calder, “Strife, Revelation, and Conversion: the Thematic Structure ofElene”,ES 53 (1972), 201–210; Fish (1975) criticizes Stepsis and Rand, asserting that their ideas “.. . describe the Latin version, where the contrast between darkness and light, concealment and revelation, good and evil are clearly and emphatically expressed. But they do not explain what Cynewulf saw in it or what use he made of it in hisElene.” But cf. their remarks on pp. 280–282.
See Doubleday (1975) for a good examination of this unpalatable aspect of the poem. He argues that the “ alliance of ferocious piety and imperial power” (Shippey (1972), p. 168) is at times so close that we can indeed no longer respect or admire Elene.
F. Holthausen, ed.Cynewulfs Elene (4th edn, Heidelberg. 1936).
See Krapp (1932), note to 1.304, and surprisingly also Holthausen (1936) in hisNachträge zu den Anmerkungen.
Again, it is an adverbial of time (in þœt œrre lif) that alerts us to the full meaning and implication.
See Campbell (1972) for a full discussion of the contrast life-death in the poem, relating it to the contrasts examined by Stepsis and Rand (1969).
See Stepsis and Rand (1969), p. 276.
They are all A-types in the Sievers analysis.
These two half-lines are not found in the source.
That is, if we assume that Widdowson's structural description of present-day Newfoundland threats also holds for Old English (John Widdowson,If You Don't Be Good: Verbal Social Control in Newfoundland (St John's, 1977), esp. chapters 3 and 4). Obviously, the use and form of threats in literature will be more complex than in ordinary verbal exchange (as I hope I am demonstrating in this essay).
Cf. Wright (1975), p. 546.
See Krapp (1932), notes to lines 314 and 315, for attempts to emend the parallel away, Fred C. Robinson, “Two Aspects of Variation in Old English Poetry” inOld English Poetry: Essay in Style, ed. Daniel G. Calder (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1979) shows that the rule motivating the “suggested improvements” in this and similar cases is almost certainly incorrect.
See Gradon, Introduction, pp. 15–22; Campbell (1972), p. 258; Gordon Whatley, “Cynewulf and Troy: A Note onElene 642–61”,N&O 218 (1973), 203–205; and most recently Hill (1980), n. 7. Holthausen's composite text is no longer trusted: it is “much interpolated, abridged and misleading” (Whatley,NM 76 (1975), n. 2). The text of St Gall 225 can be found in Alfred Holder.Inventio Sanctae Crucis (Leipzig, 1889). For ease of reference. I keep his line-divisions.
This is corrected tospiritibus. The version Cynewulf had before him seems to have contained both words (cf. 11.297b and 301a, 302a).
Cynewulf's art of translation strengthens the effect of this past tense by the addition ofgeardagum on the one hand (negative foreshadowing) and by the expansion of the three Latin wordsfuistis dilecti Deo into two lines of verse on the other hand (the positive statement).
I wish to thank Willem Koopman for various kinds of help in writing this essay: Roger Eaton for useful comments on an earlier version; and Olga Fischer for suggestions about several points of detail.
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van der Wurff, W.A.M. Cynewulf'sElene: The first speech to the Jews. Neophilologus 66, 301–312 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02050620
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02050620