The Sources and Analogues of the Old English Andreas by Bill Friesen A thesis submitted in ...

336 Pages·2008·1.83 MB·English

Visions and Revisions:
The Sources and Analogues of the Old English Andreas

by

Bill Friesen

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy,
Graduate Department of English,
University of Toronto

© Copyright by Bill Friesen, 2008
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Thesis Abstract

Title: Visions and Revisions: The Sources and Analogues of the Old English Andreas

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy, 2008.

Submitted by: Bill Friesen

Department: Graduate Department of English, University of Toronto

This dissertation investigates through the paradigms of the opus geminatum
genre the relationship of the Old English verse Andreas to its potential exemplars,
influences and subsequent renderings. The study focuses specifically upon the ways in
which inherited textual dynamics of the opus geminatum—a pair of texts, one in verse
and one in prose, which ostensibly treat the same subject—contribute to substantive
and stylistic parallels or deviations between Andreas and these other texts.
The first chapter positions the paradigm of the opus geminatum alongside the
ongoing discussions about the relationships both of internal elements within Andreas,
and between Andreas and its Latin or Old English analogues. It provides a detailed
overview of the opus geminatum as this grows out of late antique traditions of
paraphrase and into the distinctive and highly nuanced genre which Anglo-Saxon
authors made their own. It argues that amidst the debates about Andreas’ relationship
to other texts, the opus geminatum affords both an historically appropriate and
potentially very productive paradigm.
The second chapter considers within this paradigm the interplay of content and
style between Andreas and what is often thought to be its closest Latin exemplar
found in the Casanatensis manuscript, for I contend here that the shift in style, from
Latin prose to Old English verse, bears a necessary, dramatic and consistently
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overlooked influence upon the content of the Old English Andreas, changing not only
how one reads that content, but the very substantive nature of the content itself.
In Chapter Three the discussion shifts to the relationship Andreas has with an
indigenous work, Beowulf, for which a number of recent studies have laid a new
groundwork which suggests exciting possibilities for analysis, most significantly at
the formulaic level, exploring the tension between explicit oral and literary
indebtedness between the two poems.
Finally, in Chapter Four the focus shifts to a comparison between the verse
Andreas and its Old English prose version of the legend, in MS Cambridge, Corpus
Christi College, 198, fols. 386r–394v, allowing one to explore in concrete detail the
assertions which opus geminatum writers like Alcuin made about the difference and
affinities between prose and verse treatments of opus geminatum texts.
My conclusion draws together the broad tendencies mapped throughout this
inquiry and considers the intrinsically relational nature of a text like Andreas. It
argues in light of uncovered evidence for the efficacy and flexibility of the methods
intrinsic to the opus geminatum as a highly appropriate analytical lens and explores
from the broad perspective how this paradigm opens numerous horizons of
engagement, such as with the embedded language of the liturgy in MS Cambridge,
Corpus Christi College, 198, or the self-conscious investment of secular literary
traditions in Beowulf with Christian literary projects, such as Andreas.
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For my parents,
who know not at all,
and for my wife,
who knows only too well.
v
Acknowledgements
Too often, acknowledgements like these are quickly written and just as quickly
forgotten, but I shall not quickly forget the personal, professional and institutional
support I enjoyed and often needed while writing this thesis. I am grateful to the
Department of English at the University of Toronto for the open fellowship and
extensive employment opportunities which funded my studies. I was also fortunate to
enjoy wise and astute guidance from Joe Goering at early stages of my work which kept
me from many later difficulties, and at the other chronological end of the project, I
would like to thank my external examiner, Fred Biggs, whose considerable expertise and
munificent attitude turned the completion of the project into an extremely productive
and positive experience. Moreover, I am deeply appreciative of Will Robin’s and Toni
Healey’s meticulous and sagacious advice which did much to balance the varied impulses
in my research. I must also offer my heartfelt thanks to David Townsend, whose
knowledge, professionalism and encouragement never failed. Above all, however, I
would like to thank my advisor, Andy Orchard, for his breadth of understanding,
tremendous efficiency, unfailing support and academic acumen, which was all put with
remarkable generosity at my disposal; it is this generosity more than anything else which
constitutes the tap-root of my recent development as a scholar.
Then there are those in the background who brought me to this point, and
without whom I would have surely faltered. I think here of my professors from the past
and colleagues in the present: Scott Veenvleit, Scott Masson, John Cooper and
particularly Stephen Dunning, all of whom showed me what was good and important
about being a scholar. But finally, there is my dear and beloved wife, Tammy, who has
been with me through it all, and now I find, at the end, words are utterly insufficient to
express my gratitude.
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Abbreviations

BHL Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina

CCSL Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina. Turnhout: Brepols,
1954–.

CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum. Vienna:
Hoelder, Pichler, Tempsky, 1866–.

EETS os Early English Texts Series, original series.

EETS ss Early English Texts Series, supplementary series.

MGH AA Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores antiquissimi.

MGH SGR Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum
Germanicarum.

MGH SRM Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum
Merovingicarum.

PL Patrologiae Cursus Completus Series Latina. 221 vols. Paris:
J.P. Migne, 1844–1864.
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Table of Contents

Title Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i
Dedication. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii
Abstract. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Abbreviations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi
Table of Contents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
List of Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii
I. Andreas and the Opus Geminatum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
II. Andreas and the Legend of Saint Andrew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
III. Andreas and Beowulf: Family Resemblances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
IV. The Old English Prose and Verse Andreas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
V. Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
Appendix I: Content of the Casantansis Account and Andreas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Appendix II: Cluster Index: Beowulf and Andreas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
Works Consulted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
1
Chapter I
Andreas and the Opus Geminatum
For scholars of Old English literature, the concept of pairing or twinning is very
familiar;1 at the level of prosody, lines of verse are divided into their a- and b-
components; compounds constitute an essential part of this literature’s diction; its
kennings depend upon the interplay between a pair of verbal elements; its alliteration
in and between lines doubles, and then often plays off that doubling for effect.2 At a
broader level, characters and their characteristics are portrayed relative to one another,
incidents repeat, and are simultaneously varied, stages of life or plot are presented in
light of one another.3 Intertextually, texts and their components gesture significantly
towards other texts, providing their audiences with an often methodical, complex and
pervasive web of allusions, an understanding of which is requisite to the appreciation
of such literature.4
A substantial amount of modern scholarship surrounds aspects of this
twinning. What is less clear, however, is how wide-ranging the dynamics of twinning

1 For example, see Fred C. Robinson, “Beowulf” and the Appositive Style (Knoxville: Tennessee UP,
1985); Courtney Bartlett, The Larger Rhetorical Patterns in Anglo-Saxon Poetry (New York: AMS,
1966); Donald Scragg, “The Nature of Old English Verse,” The Cambridge Companion to Old English
Literature, eds. M. Godden and M. Lapidge (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991): 54–70.
2 Claudia Barquist, “Phonological Patterning in Beowulf,” Literary and Linguistic Computing 2 (1987):
19–26; Dennis Cronan, “Alliterative Rank in Old English Poetry,” Studia Neuphilologica 58 (1986):
145–158; John Niles, “Compound Diction and Style of Beowulf,” English Studies 62 (1981): 489–503;
Walter Berendsohn, Zur Vorgeschichte des ‘Beowulf,’ (Copenhagen: Levin & Munksgaard, 1935);
Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe, “Diction, Variation and the Formula,” A Beowulf Handbook, eds. Robert
E. Bjork and John D. Niles (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1997): 85–104; Thomas Gardner,
“Semantic Patterns in Old English Substantival Compounds,” Hamburg (Ph.D. Diss., University of
Hamburg, 1968).
3 Robert Creed, “The Andswarode-System in Old English Poetry,” Speculum 32 (1957): 523–528;
Margaret Monteverde, “The Patterning of History in Old English Literature” (Ph.D. Diss., Ohio State
University, 1989).
4 Cf. Neil Wright, History and Literature in Late Antiquity and the Early Medieval West: Studies in
Intertextuality (Aldershot: Variorum, 1995); Alger Doane, “Influence and Intertextuality in Literary
History,” Oral Texts, Intertexts, and Intratexts: Editing Old English, eds. J. Clayton and E. Rothstein
(Madison: University of Madison, 1991): 75–113.
2
were to the Anglo-Saxon authors themselves and, in the case of this inquiry, just how
they relied upon such dynamics in activities which touch upon textual relationships.
Around these questions, and just how at the practical level twinning works, circle
numerous debates.5 For instance, from which prior texts does a given text derive, and
in turn, what subsequent texts are based upon the given text? Is the text of mixed
literary heritage between, for instance, Latin and vernacular backgrounds?6 Is a
particular poem meant to be read against a prose version or another verse
composition?7 Do the author’s intentions for a text relate to a similar or contrasting set
of intentions in another text?
The Old English verse Andreas affords scholars a rich example of these
pairing dynamics and thereby opens for us a range of evidence with which to frame
responses to questions such as those above.8 The poem employs all the familiar
prosodic aspects of twinning, through kennings and compounds, the use of double
alliteration to highlight key passages, incremental repetition and envelope patterns. At
the level of plot and characterization, situations repeat and are varied, characters play
off of one another, contrasting and paralleling for effect, and both protagonists and

5 The second chapter will discuss at length the history of this debate, particularly as it touches upon the
formulaic relationship between Old English poems, both secular and Christian.
6 See, for instance, Eric Stanley, “Linguistic Self-Awareness at Various Times in the History of English
from Old English Onwards,” Lexis and Texts in Early English, eds. K. Christian, S. Michaels and L.
Sylvester (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001): 237–253; another interesting article is by Alfred Wollmann,
“Early Christian Loan-Words in Old English,” Pagans and Christians: The Interplay between
Christian Latin and Traditional Germanic Cultures in Early Medieval Europe, ed. T. Hofstra
(Groningen: Forsten, 1995): 175–210.
7 Mary Blockley, Linguistic and Stylistic Differences between Old English Verse and Old English
Prose (Ph.D. Diss., Yale University, 1984); Yoshihiro Yoshino, Poetic Syntax in the Old English
Meters of Boethius: A Comparative Study of Verse and Prose (Ph.D. Diss., University of Pennsylvania,
1984); Alistair Campbell, “Verse Influence in Old English Prose,” Philological Essays: Studies in Old
and Middle English Language and Literature in Honour of Herbert Dean Meritt, ed. J. Rosier (The
Hague: Mouton, 1970): 93–98; Edward Irving, “Latin Prose Sources for Old English Verse,” Journal
of English and Germanic Philology 56 (1957): 588–595.
8 The current critical edition is by Kenneth Brooks, ed., Andreas and Fates of the Apostles (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1961).
3
antagonists shift from one state to its diametric opposite. However, it is with Andreas’
relationship with the texts and contexts outside itself that this discussion is ultimately
concerned, though a treatment of these intertextual relationships necessarily entails to
considerable depth the internal prosodic and substantive elements of twinning also.
Moreover, Andreas seems a particularly apt text for comparative studies at this
intertextual level, for though we do not posses the specific version from which it
derives, a considerable number of prior Latin and Greek texts which manifest its main
constituent components—some of them quite closely—are available to us.9 Likewise,
two Old English prose versions exist,10 not to mention other prose and verse versions
in Old Icelandic.11 This means that a comparative basis for study across linguistic and
literary cultures obtains between Andreas and its Mediterranean and North Sea
contexts. Simultaneously there is a foundation for comparative studies within Anglo-
Saxon England between prose and verse or oral and written analogues. This is not to
mention the strong stylistic and formulaic affinities between Andreas and other works,
such as those by Cynewulf, or Guthlac B;12 however, the scope of this thesis does not

9 An introduction to the tradition from which the Old English Andreas derives is provided by Robert
Boenig, The Acts of Andrew in the Country of the Cannibals: Translations from the Greek, Latin,
and Old English, Vol. 70b (London: Garland, 1991); for a more thorough treatment, see Milton
Reimer, “The Old English Andreas: A Study of the Poet’s Response to his Source” (Ph.D. Diss.,
University of Texas, 1965): 312 pages; or again, Ellen Baumler, “Andrew in the City of the Cannibals:
A Comparative Study of the Latin, Greek and Old English Texts” (Ph.D. Diss., University of Kansas,
1984): 129 pages.
10 MS. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 198, fols. 386r–394v, for which the critical edition is James
Bright, ed., Bright’s Anglo-Saxon Reader, 3rd ed. (New York: Holt, 1971): 113–128, and the
fragmentary Blickling Homily XIX, for which Richard Morris’ rendering is the critical edition: The
Blickling Homilies, EETS os (London: Oxford UP, 1967).
11 The Icelandic versions are as follows: MS. Reykjavík, Hið Íslenska bókmenntafélag, 165 4to (36v-
42r); MS. Reykjavík, Hið Íslenska bókmenntafélag, 76 8vo (88r-117v); MS. Reykjavík,
Landsbókasafn, 326 4to (151r-191v); MS. Reykjavík, Landsbókasafn 776 4to(27v-35v); MS.
Reykjavík, Landsbókasafn 1582 4to (47r-57r); MS. Reykjavík, Landsbókasafn 1947 4to (107r-130r).
12 The most comprehensive examination of the relationship between Cynewulf’s work and Andreas is
by Alison Powell, “Verbal Parallels in Andreas and its Relationship to Beowulf and Cynewulf” (Ph.D.
Diss., Cambridge University, 2002); see also Samantha Zacher, “Cynewulf at the Interface of Literacy
and Orality: The Evidence of Puns in Elene,” Oral Tradition 17: 2 (2002): 346–87, and Andy Orchard,
“Both Style and Substance: the Case for Cynewulf,” Anglo-Saxon Styles, eds. Karkov and Brown
(Albany: State University of New York, 2003): 271–305.