The Columbia History of British Poetry Read Online Free PDF

soldier in The Battle of Maldon reminded his companions of their hall-vows "over mead, on the bench." Waldere , treating the same legend that survives in the Latin verse epic Waltharius , provides examples of, among other things, the tension between heroic ideas and human affection, weapons with a legendary past, stolen treasure, the hero's headlong drive for everlasting glory, and the role of women in Old English poetry.

 

Page 17
Brunanburh and Maldon , poems on actual tenth-century battles fought by contemporary kings and great magnates, adapt the heroic mode to patriotic ends. The first, one of the most familiar of all Old English poems through Tennyson's translation, sees no unresolvable contradiction between piety and the heroic life: its glory-filled battle, red with blood and illuminated by God's rising and setting sun, is viewed from a historical perspective reminiscent of Manifest Destiny. Maldon commemorates a bad day: the general fell, part of his army ran away, and the English lost. Nevertheless, some Anglo-Saxon poet turned this debacle into "the most heroic of poems," one famed for its "invincible profession of heroic faith." Byrhtnoth, the leader, chooses to fight rather than pay tribute, to bloody the Vikings rather than watch them sail off into the sunrise; after he falls, his loyal retainers choose to stay and die rather than flee and live. "Remember" is the first word spoken by a retainer in Maldon ; one by one, those left on the field revive within themselves their lord's heroic song. The words uttered by one of them"Spirit must be the firmer, heart the bolder, courage the greater, as our strength lessens"are probably the most frequently quoted in all Old English poetry.
Not surprisingly, the Old English poems about the deeds of the "soldiers of Christ" are less well known, even though they tell highly dramatic, even rip-roaring stories. In Andreas St. Andrew embarks on an eventful sea journey to free his fellow apostle Matthew from the man-eating Mermedonians, undergoes torture, and by means of a miraculous flood converts his captors to Christianity. Most commentary on the poem is concerned with its possible verbal borrowings from Beowulf (or vice versa; the jury is still out). The differences between the two works, however, are just as striking. The action of Beowulf takes place in history, with eternity impinging only at moments; its tone is measured and full of regret. The action of Andreas is abstract and symbolic, performed on a cosmic stage; its tone, joyful and excited. Exaggerated violence and ecstasy are cultivated at every turn. Christ, as king, creates his comitatus , twelve companions serving as "thanes of the prince"; he determines their "lot." Andrew converting the heathen is the historical apostle but also a warrior in the cosmic battle between Christ and Satan. When the saint resolves to go alone to the land of the cannibals, his own retainers, protesting that if they did not accompany him they, lordless, would be welcome nowhere, make the right heroic choice. Yet in the dual vision of the poem, an act that occurs once is seen as having eternally occurred.

 

Page 18
In the other poetic saints' lives, too, literal statements of loyalty, literal battles, literal conversions, somehow always end up portending moral, eternal, and spiritual archetypes. Elene tells of the search for the true Cross in Jerusalem by Helena, the mother of the emperor Constantine (who was granted a vision of the Cross as a sign of victory); it is also the story of Judas, the Jew who eventually assisted Helena in finding the Cross and became, as Cyriacus, bishop of Jerusalem. Both Constantine's opening battle with the Goths and his mother's excessively martial sea voyage are sometimes removed from their context and admired as set pieces; yet in Elene , the warfare of the emperor and the archaeological mission of his "war-queen" mother are much of the time indistinguishable from the Church Militant battling the