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“Ðæt Is Wrætlic Deor”: Fantastic Creatures' Alternate Natures As Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University English Dissertations Department of English 12-14-2017 “Ðæt Is Wrætlic Deor”: Fantastic Creatures’ Alternate Natures as Metalwork, Architectural Works, and Other Highly-Wrought Objects in Old English Writings James Crowder Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss Recommended Citation Crowder, James, "“Ðæt Is Wrætlic Deor”: Fantastic Creatures’ Alternate Natures as Metalwork, Architectural Works, and Other Highly-Wrought Objects in Old English Writings." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2017. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss/188 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “ÐÆT IS WRÆTLIC DEOR”: FANTASTIC CREATURES’ ALTERNATE NATURES AS METALWORK, ARCHITECTURAL WORKS, AND OTHER HIGHLY-WROUGHT OBJECTS IN OLD ENGLISH WRITINGS By JAMES VICTOR CROWDER Under the Direction of Edward John Christie, PhD ABSTRACT The conflation of fantastic beasts and monsters with highly-wrought objects constitutes a heretofore-critically-unacknowledged yet prevalent mode of representation in Old English literature. The Anglo-Saxon writers and poets utilizing this mode notably mobilize a number of strategies to blur the line between the bodies of such creatures and the associated manmade items, including figurative relationships, parallelism linking two accounts within the larger narrative, the conceptual pairing or collocation of seemingly-unrelated entities within a particular account, the description of a creature’s body with an adjective that normally applies to highly- wrought objects, and the destruction of a creature’s body in the precise manner befitting the destruction of a material artifact. Considering that each of the writers and poets utilizes two or more strategies to link a given fantastic beast or monster to the indicated object or objects, the depictions ultimately convey the sense that the amazing creatures literally possess alternate natures as the exquisite items. In turn, the fundamental identification of living entity with material artifact in the different accounts enables the creatures to perform the important cultural work of responding to insular fantasies and anxieties tied to the perceived moral worth of certain kinds of splendid objects produced by or otherwise encountered within Anglo-Saxon England. The depictions specifically serve this end by effectively granting these objects beastly lives and a remarkable level of creaturely agency in the landscapes or seascapes of man’s moral universe. The objects enabled to enjoy such animal existences most frequently fall into two main, sometimes overlapping craftwork categories: insular and Roman items of smithwork and Roman/extra-insular architectural works, including entire buildings and individual architectural elements. Several documented aspects of Anglo-Saxon material culture stand to shed light on the writers’ and poets’ inspiration to work with a theme of crafted objects’ moral worth in the first place, their tendency to engage the theme by conflating the material artifacts with the bodies of fantastic beasts and monsters, and their choice mainly to merge the fabulous creatures with architectural works and/or smithwork, with occasional recourse to other types of craftwork. INDEX WORDS: Old English literature, Beowulf, Phoenix, Panther, Whale, Grendel “ÐÆT IS WRÆTLIC DEOR”: FANTASTIC CREATURES’ ALTERNATE NATURES AS METALWORK, ARCHITECTURAL WORKS, AND OTHER HIGHLY-WROUGHT OBJECTS IN OLD ENGLISH WRITINGS By JAMES VICTOR CROWDER A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy In the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2017 Copyright by James Victor Crowder 2017 “ÐÆT IS WRÆTLIC DEOR”: FANTASTIC CREATURES’ ALTERNATE NATURES AS METALWORK, ARCHITECTURAL WORKS, AND OTHER HIGHLY-WROUGHT OBJECTS IN OLD ENGLISH WRITINGS By JAMES VICTOR CROWDER Committee Director: Edward John Christie Committee: Scott Lightsey Stephen Dobranski Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University December 2017 iv DEDICATION For my father. He has always encouraged me in pursuing higher education, lending me support in so many ways during my time at Georgia State University, including during my coursework, PhD qualifying exams, teaching, and writing this dissertation. Thanks, Dad. I love you. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank in particular four people at Georgia State University for their support during my coursework and subsequent writing of this dissertation over the years. First of all, I extend my sincerest gratitude toward Dr. Edward Christie, my Dissertation Director; he singlehandedly introduced me to the world of Anglo-Saxon studies during my earlier coursework, and he worked with me on a number of occasions throughout the last few years to ensure that I was pointed in the right direction in terms of refining my scholarship and writing for this dissertation. Also, I send my deep appreciation to the two members of my Dissertation Committee, Dr. Scott Lightsey and Dr. Stephen Dobranski. I had the pleasure of studying and discussing literature in several classes under each of these learned gentlemen, and their personal warmth, positivity, and informed feedback during the initial and final stages of the dissertation process lent a richness to the process for this graduate student. Last but not least, I assert that I would not have made it through my PhD qualifying exams or performed the initial work on this dissertation without the friendship and professional camaraderie of Dr. Philip Purser. Thank you, Phil, for the hours upon hours of personal time you spent with me, studying for our Primary Exam, giving each other updates on our dissertation progress, and discussing life and love in general. I miss you, my friend. My loving family likewise merit my unreserved gratitude—my father, mother, sister, and brother. They have all had to witness me being stressed for years regarding the finishing of this dissertation. My special thanks to my father and sister for their support in meeting my responsibilities both in and outside of my academic life. Thanks, Dad and Jen. I literally could not have done it all without you. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................................... v 1 INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................. 1 1.1 The Influence of Key Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Material Culture on the Depictions ....................................................................................................................................... 13 1.2 Chapter Summaries .................................................................................................... 31 2 CHAPTER 1: THE EXETER BOOK’S THREE SMITHWORK BEASTS ............ 35 2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 35 2.2 A Close Look at Old English Wrætlic and Its Usage in the Exeter Book .............. 41 2.3 The Panther’s Hide/Coat as Joseph’s Highly-Wrought Coat-of-Many-Colors .... 45 2.4 The Whale’s Jaws as Hell’s Grated Iron Prison Doors ........................................... 60 2.5 The Phoenix as an Assemblage of Exquisite Items of Metalwork .......................... 74 2.6 Further Considerations ............................................................................................... 92 3 CHAPTER 2: THE LATIN-INFLUENCED SERPENTS AND DRAGONS AS ROMAN-INSPIRED ARCHITECTURAL WORKS .................................................. 94 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 94 3.2 A Close Look at The Wanderer’s Serpent-Wall .................................................... 102 3.3 Alexander’s Letter to Aristotle’s Serpents as Exquisite Columns ........................ 108 3.4 The Old English Orosius’ Serpent as a Fortress or Castle .................................... 118 3.5 The Life of Saint Margaret’s Dragon as a Splendid Idol and Prison Building ... 123 vii 3.6 Further Considerations ............................................................................................. 132 4 CHAPTER 3: TWO OF BEOWULF’S GRENDEL EPISODE’S MONSTERS AS EXQUISITE OBJECTS AND THE HERO AS THE REVEALER OF THEIR ALTERNATE NATURES............................................................................................ 134 4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 134 4.2 The Wrætlicne Wyrm as an Exquisite Piece of Gem-Inset Metalwork ............... 146 4.3 Grendel’s Body as an Assemblage of Highly-Wrought Metal Objects ................ 161 4.4 Beowulf as the Perceiver and Revealer of Grendel’s Craftwork Nature ............. 192 4.5 Further Considerations ............................................................................................. 196 ENDNOTES..............................................................................................................................
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