• Constructing Anglo-Saxon Sanctity: Tradition, Innovation and Saint Guthlac

    Author(s):
    Alaric Hall (see profile)
    Date:
    2007
    Subject(s):
    English poetry--Old English, Anglo-Saxons--Study and teaching, Hagiography
    Item Type:
    Book chapter
    Tag(s):
    Guthlac A, Saint Guthlac, anglo-saxon poetry, Anglo-Saxon studies
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6Z31NN6H
    Abstract:
    'Constructing Anglo-Saxon Sanctity: Tradition, Innovation and Saint Guthlac' develops the unique opportunities afforded by the hagiography surrounding the Anglo-Saxon saint Guthlac for investigating the place of saints' cults in Anglo-Saxon society. Guthlac was one of England's first home-grown saints, and enjoyed a commensurate prominence in Anglo-Saxon culture. Besides being the subject of some of England's earliest Latin hagiography, Guthlac is the only native saint to have received hagiography in the form of Old English poetry. Moreover, while the majority of Old English poetry was closely based on Latin sources, the long poem Guthlac A was not. The article focuses on this unusual poem, examining its combination of an Anglo-Saxon subject and medium with a Christian genre to gain access to Anglo-Saxon images of saints which are usually hidden from us. Guthlac's rite of passage is a struggle with the demons who inhabit his hermitage in the East Anglian fens; significantly, although this phase of his life is prominent in all texts, Guthlac A focuses on it almost exclusively. The article analyses this portrayal of Guthlac as a monster-fighter in the context of other Anglo-Saxon handlings of monster-fighting, principally Beowulf. Guthlac A can be seen to invert traditional Anglo-Saxon imagery and diction of monster-fighting, to emphasise that Guthlac's peaceful invocations of God and saints are superior to traditional physical violence. Likewise, the poem situates the conflict in a space whose traditional connotations are shown by other Anglo-Saxon evidence to have been of heathenism and banishment--a situation which Guthlac overcomes, to redefine the meanings of traditional topoi in a Christian world.
    Notes:
    Visualising the Middle Ages, 1
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Book chapter     Show details
    Publisher:
    Brill
    Pub. Date:
    2007
    Book Title:
    Images of Sanctity: Essays in Honour of Gary Dickson
    Author/Editor:
    Debra Higgs Strickland
    Page Range:
    207 - 235
    ISBN:
    978-90-47-42068-2
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    5 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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