The Poems of MS Junius 11: Basic Readings

350 Pages·2002·7.761 MB·English

by  R. M. Liuzza

THE POEMS OF
MS 11
JUNIUS
BASIC READINGS IN ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND
CARL T. BERKHOUT, PAUL E. SZARMACH,
AND JosEPH B. TRAHERN, JR., General Editors
OLD ENGLISH SHORTER POEMS ANGLO-SAXON MANuSCRIPTS
Basic Readings Basic Readings
edited by Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe edited by Mary P. Richards
BEOWULF CYNEWULF
Basic Readings Basic Readings
edited by Peter S. Baker Robert E. Bjork
THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF ANGLO-SAXON OLD ENGLISH PROSE
ENGLAND Basic Readings
Basic Readings edited by Paul E. Szarmach
edited by Catherine E. Karkov
THE POEMS OF MS JUNIUS 11
Basic Readings
edited by R. M. Liuzza
THE POEMS OF
MS JUNIUS 11
Basic Readings
edited by
R. M. Liuzza
ROUTLEDGE
New York and London
Published in 2002 by
Routledge
29 West 35th Street
New York, NY 10001
Published in Great Britain by
Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane
London EC4P 4EE
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
Copyright © 2002 R. M. Liuzza
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or uti
lized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The poems of MS Junius 11 : basic readings I edited by R.M. Liuzza.
p. em. - (Basic readings in Anglo-Saxon England ; vol. 8)
ISBN 0-8153-3862-7 (acid-free paper)
1. Caedmon manuscript. 2. English poetry-Old English, ca. 450-1100-
History and criticism. 3. Christian poetry, English (Old)-History and criticism.
4. Manuscripts, Medieval-England. 5. Manuscripts, English (Old) I. Liuzza,
R. M. II. Series.
PR1624 .P64 2001
829' .1 093823-dc21
2001044216
Contents
Preface of the General Editors vii
Introduction ix
R. M. Liuzza
Acknowledgments xix
List of Abbreviations xxi
Confronting Germania Latina: Changing Responses to Old
English Biblical Verse 1
Joyce Hill
The Old English Epic of Redemption: The Theological Unity
of MS Junius 11 20
J. R. Hall
"The Old English Epic of Redemption": Twenty-Five-Year
Retrospective 53
J. R. Hall
Some Uses of Paronomasia in Old English Scriptural Verse 69
Roberta Frank
Tempter as Rhetoric Teacher: The Fall of Language in the
Old English Genesis B 99
Eric Jager
Conspicuous Heroism: Abraham, Prudentius, and the Old
English Verse Genesis 119
Andrew Orchard
Christian Tradition in the Old English Exodus 137
James W. Earl
v
vi Contents
The Patriarchal Digression in the Old English Exodus,
Lines 362-446 173
Stanley R. Hauer
The Lion Standard in Exodus: Jewish Legend, Germanic
Tradition, and Christian Typology 188
Charles D. Wright
The Structure of the Old English Daniel 203
Robert T. Farrell
Style and Theme in the Old English Daniel 229
Earl R. Anderson
Nebuchadnezzar's Dreams in the Old English Daniel 261
Antonina Harbus
The Power of Knowledge and the Location of the Reader
in Christ and Satan 287
Ruth Wehlau
The Wisdom Poem at the End of MS Junius 11 302
Janet Schrunk Ericksen
Index 327
Preface of the General Editors
Basic Readings in Anglo-Saxon England (BRASE) is a series of
volumes that collect classic, exemplary, or ground-breaking essays in the
fields of Anglo-Saxon studies generally written in the 1960s or later, or
commissioned by a volume editor to fulfill the purpose of the given vol
ume. The General Editors impose no prior restraint of "correctness" of
ideology, method, or critical position. Each volume editor has editorial
autonomy to select essays that sketch the achievement in a given area of
study or point to the potential for future study. The liveliness and diver
sity of the interdisciplinary field, manifest in the Annual Bibliography in
the Old English Newsletter and in the review of that Bibliography in the
Year's Work in Old English Studies, can lead only to editorial choices
that reflect intellectual openness. BRASE volumes must be true to their
premises, complete within their articulated limits, and accessible to a
multiple readership. Each collection may serve as a "first book" on the
delimited subject, where students and teachers alike may find a conve
nient starting point. The terminus a quo, approximately the 1960s, may
be associated with the general rise of Anglo-Saxon studies and a
renewed, interdisciplinary professionalism therein; other collections,
particularly in literature, represent the earlier period. Changes in publi
cation patterns and in serial-acquisitions policies, moreover, suggest that
convenient collections can still assist the growth and development of
Anglo-Saxon studies.
This volume is the first in our series to be devoted to the study of a
single manuscript, published in 1655 by Francis Junius and the first of
the four great codices of Old English poetry to appear in print. Roy
vii
viii Preface of the General Editors
Liuzza has collected twelve previously published essays to which he has
added a detailed update of one (by its author) and an original essay com
missioned for this volume. The first three essays deal with manuscript as
a whole-one surveying and commenting on past criticism, one advo
cating a salvation history of the sort found in Augustine's De cate
chizandis rudibus as the manuscript's organizing principle, and a third
examining various examples of paronomasia, which provide a vehicle in
the four poems for discovering the congruence between language and
divine truth. These essays are followed by two on Genesis, two on Exo
dus, three on Daniel, and two (including Janet Schrunk Ericksen's origi
nal contribution to the volume) on Christ and Satan. Liuzza's informed
and succinct summaries of each essay in his Introduction will provide
both the novice and the experienced scholar ease of access to the wide
variety of essays as well as a sense of how they contribute to one
another.
The General Editors would like to thank Professor Liuzza for his
willingness to organize this volume and add it to the collections already
published in the series.
Carl T. Berkhout
Paul E. Szarmach
Joseph B. Trahern, Jr.
Introduction
R. M. LIUZZA
MS Junius 11 in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, written around
1000, contains poems on biblical subjects, untitled in their manuscript
but called by modem editors Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, and Christ and
Satan. The manuscript was the first Old English poetic collection to be
printed, by its owner Franciscus Junius in 1655;1 Junius believed that the
poems were written by Credmon, the inspired poet and innovator of Old
English Christian poetry made famous by Bede's Ecclesiastical History
iv.24. It is now commonly accepted that the poems in the manuscript are
not by Credmon; in fact, each is probably by a different author. Yet the
poems were collected and arranged in one manuscript, a fact which
allows and encourages us to consider them as a group and raises the pos
sibility that the meaning of one poem may be illuminated by the study of
its manuscript companions. The physical context of these poems, in
other words, may be our best clue to their interpretive context. This col
lection, which gathers together 13 essays on the Junius poems, presents
an opportunity to read each poem in light of the others.
"In many respects we are in no position yet to examine these
pieces," Geoffrey Shepherd wrote in 1966; "We do not know enough
about Anglo-Saxon literary activities, and we have not yet acquired
modem critical techniques adequate for the analysis of their work."2
Shepherd's discouraging opinion was based on the evidence of what he
calls "successive recomposition," the reuse of older materials in later
texts. The most dramatic example of this is the interpolation of a long
fragment of a translated Old Saxon poem (now called Genesis B) into
the narrative of Genesis A. Smaller interpolations may have been com-