Abstract
The profuse and apparently redundant lexical variation of Cædmon’s Hymn has long been a critical problem, resulting in a wide range of interpretations and evaluations of the hymn. This essay applies insights from recent developments from Oral Theory, particularly the concept of multiformity, to argue that the hymn’s variation reflects a poetics of oral performance in which poetic synonyms successively “perform” rather than describe the hymn’s subject matter. Three aspects of this poetics are identified and discussed: its iterative structure, traditional register, and temporality of continuous present. The role these aspects play in the hymn’s ritual function are considered and illustrated with similarly-varied passages from Beowulf and the Old English Creed. Finally, the meaning structures of the rhetorical figure of variation are evaluated in relation to the eulogizing aspect of Old English verse as a whole, and contrasted to the use of metaphor in Old English poetry.
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Ramey, P. Variation and the Poetics of Oral Performance in Cædmon’s Hymn . Neophilologus 96, 441–456 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-011-9270-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-011-9270-4