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Page 20
The didactic strategies of these poems are varied. They range from impersonal catalogues (
The Gifts of Men, The Fortunes of Men
) and poems spoken by a mostly undeveloped persona (
Precepts, Vainglory. Order of the World, The Phoenix, The Whale
) to full-blown monologues and dialogues (
The Soul and Body
poems, and
Solomon and Saturn
, which contains passages as powerful and memorable as anything in Old English verse).
Judgment Day I
and
The Fates of the Apostles
mix brief autobiographical notes with urgent doctrine;
Descent into Hell
merges the voice of the imagined prophet with that of the poet. Some poems resemble self-help guides on how to win eternity and influence the saints (
Instructions for Christians, An Exhortation to Christian Living / A Summons to Prayer
now one poem); others present themselves as calendars (
Seasons for Fasting, Menologium
misnamed) or mnemonics (
The Rune Poem
).
Wisdom can and should be competitive and demanding. The eight-line
Pharaoh
illustrates, in miniature, how this "outdoing" works. The questioner asks how many warriors there were in Pharoah's army when they pursued the Israelites. The answer: "I'm not sure, but there were six hundred chariots when they were drowned." The questioner must then "solve" the answer by recalling, first, that all who pursued died and, second, that there were three men in each chariot for a total of eighteen hundred casualties. Directness was not a virtue in Old English poetry.
Two compositions,
Maxims I
and
II
(the latter made up of three separate poems), consist of strings of commonplaces, generalized reflections on the properties and nature of things; their purpose remains a mystery. The poets provide a sequence of maxims tightly connected in form but disparate in meaning: the statement "a dragon must be in a barrow" is followed by "fish must spawn its kind in the water," "a king must distribute rings in the hall," and finally, "loyalty must be in a warrior, wisdom in a man." Part of our pleasure in these strands comes from their blend of the concrete and abstract, the physical and the moral, the banal and the profound.
A similar meditation on the multiformity of the world is provided by the nearly one hundred riddles preserved, in two large groups, in the Exeter Book. Among the everyday objects of sense experience transformed by the riddles are wrought instruments (rake and plow), domestic and church equipment (loom, churn, chalice), birds, animals, natural phenomena, weapons, and items of food and drink; there are runes, letters, cryptograms, and items connected with writing and books
 
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(recalling that
riddle
is the cognate object of
read
). Answers are not provided in the manuscript: the subject of riddle 4 has therefore been confidently identified as a bell, millstone, flail, lock, handmill, pen, phallus, and necromancy. But our inability to decide whether riddle 39, for example, is "about" day, moon, time, death, cloud, or dream, suggests that these disparate categories may have something important, and totally unexpected, in common. The copulating cock and hen (riddle 42), the metaphysical soul and body (riddle 43), and the double entendre key (riddle 44) are written on the same folio. Like the maxims, the riddles juxtapose the natural and the man-made, the corporeal and intellectual, the coarse and the sublime, dividing the world into exotic taxonomies far (we think) from our daily experience.
The Anglo-Saxon poets were masters of the wordin a culture in which words could still affect (and effect, as the twelve extant poetic
Charms
insist) events. Theirs was a supple and coherent use of the vernacular, the fitting together of alliterative and consonant syllables to prove or predict the mutual relevance of word and thing. Like their modern counterparts, composers of Old English verse were fascinated by linguistic detail, by the sounds and shapes of words and the sudden sparkle of meaning, but their reflection upon language went a step further, becoming a springboard to speculation about the nature of the world. Skill in this poetic art, developed by means of a pedagogy in which the Anglo-Saxons were the undisputed champions of medieval Europe, was used by its practitioners not only to express reality but to implement it.
This strong sense of the power adhering to words gives Old English poetry its distinctive character. There may be a persistence of Old English meter in the classic English pentameter line. And there may be phrases in our current language"time and tide," "heaven and earth," "to have and to hold," "Guinness is good for you"that are, distantly, "Old English.'' But although English lived on, the poetic art that startled and inspired Hopkins and Auden was among the casualties of the Battle of Hastings.
 
Page 22
Further Reading
Bessinger, Jess B., and P. H. Smith.
A Concordance to the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records
. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1978.
Bradley, S. A. J., trans. and ed.
Anglo-Saxon Poetry
. London: Dent (Everyman's Library), 1982. [Translations]
Campbell, James, ed.
The, Anglo-Saxons
. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1982. [Historical and cultural background]
Gatch, Milton McC.
Loyalties and Traditions: Man and His World in Old English Literature
. New York: Pegasus, 1971.
Godden, Malcolm, and Michael Lapidge, eds.
The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Greenfield, Stanley B., and D. G. Calder.
A New Critical History of Old English Literature
. Rev. ed. New York: New York University Press, 1986.
Krapp, George P., and E. V. K. Dobbie, eds.
The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records
. 6 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 19311953. [Texts]
Shippey, T. A.
Old English Verse
. London: Hutchinson, 1972.
Stanley, Eric Gerald.
A Collection of Papers with Emphasis on Old English Literature
. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1987.
Stanley, Eric Gerald.
Continuations and Beginnings: Studies in Old English Literature
. London: Nelson, 1966.

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