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Eco-Critical and Eco-Theological Readings of the Exeter Book Riddles

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Eco-Critical and Eco-Theological Readings of the Exeter Book Riddles Suffering, Servitude, Power: Eco-Critical and Eco-Theological Readings of the Exeter Book Riddles by Corinne Elizabeth Dale Royal Holloway, University of London 2015 A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) 1 2 Contents Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………… p. 4 Abstract…………………………………………………………………………… p. 5 List of Abbreviations…………………………………………………………….. p. 6 Introduction………………………………………………………………………. p. 7 Chapter 1: ‘be sonde, sæwealle neah’: Locating Non-Human Subjects in an Anthropocentric World……………………………. p. 42 Chapter 2: ‘earfoða dæl’: The Groan of Travail in the Exeter Book Ox Riddles……………………………………………………. p. 68 Chapter 3: ‘wrætlic weorc smiþa’: Inverting the Colophon in Riddle 26………………………………………………………….. p. 100 Chapter 4: ‘deope gedolgod’: Wounding and Shaping in Riddles 53 and 73……………………………………………………………. p. 132 Chapter 5: ‘fruman agette / eall of earde’: The Principle of Accountability in Riddle 83…………………………………………. p. 151 Chapter 6: ‘mægene binumen’: The Failure of Human Mastery in the Wine and Mead Riddles…………………………………………… p. 171 Chapter 7: ‘swa ne wenaþ men’: The Limits of Wisdom in Riddle 84 and the Storm Riddles…………………………………………….. p. 193 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………... p. 223 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………….... p. 234 3 Acknowledgements The completion of this thesis would not have been possible without the advice and support of my supervisor, Dr Jennifer Neville; her guidance has been invaluable and her dedication to both my research project and my professional development has been far more than I could have hoped for. I would like to thank Dr Catherine Nall, Dr Pirkko Koppinen and Professor Adam Roberts for their feedback on various parts of my work, and the members of the Old English Reading Group for their continued company and counsel. I would also like to thank the English Department at Royal Holloway, University of London for the financial assistance the College Research Scholarship Award has given me. The final thank you must go to my family and friends who have given me so much encouragement over the last three years. To Bonnie, too – the dearest of non- humans. There’s always a place for you under my desk. A special acknowledgement goes to Mum and Sam, whose love and support nænig oþrum mæg wordum gecyþan. This thesis is dedicated to you. 4 Abstract Humanity is a dominant presence in the Exeter Book riddle collection, significantly more so than it is in other early English riddle collections, and it is shown actively shaping, changing, and interacting with the physical world. The Exeter Book riddles engage with issues of exploitation, degradation and suffering and use their playful literary context to portray and, at times, reassess the roles of mastery and servitude that humans and nature have assumed in the post-lapsarian world. In this thesis, I set out to explore the depiction of the non-human world in the Exeter Book Riddle collection, investigating humanity’s interaction with, and attitudes towards, the rest of creation using the fields of eco-criticism and eco-theology. Much scholarly attention has been given to what the riddles have to say about human society and culture, about heroism, service, sex and war, but very little has been said regarding the point-of-view of the natural world. I argue that there is a programme of resistance to anthropocentrism at work in the Exeter Book Riddle collection, whereby the riddles challenge human-centred ways of depicting and interpreting the created world. Depictions of the marginalised perspectives of sentient and non-sentient beings such as trees and animals are not just a characteristic of the riddle genre, but are actively used to explore the point of view of the natural world and the impact humanity has on its non-human inhabitants. 5 Abbreviations ASLE Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment ASPR Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records BBA Bonner Beiträge zur Anglistik Brn The Battle of Brunanburh BudV Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Königlich Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig CSASE Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England EETS Early English Text Society FoM The Fortunes of Men FoA The Fates of the Apostles GA Guthlac A Gen A Genesis A ISLE Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment JEGP The Journal of English and Germanic Philology MLN Modern Language Notes Mx I Maxims I Mx II Maxims II NKJB New King James Bible OED Oxford English Dictionary Phx The Phoenix PMLA Publications of the Modern Language Association of America R. Riddle Rgn Resignation DR The Dream of the Rood Rn The Ruin Sfr The Seafarer S & B II Soul and Body II Vgl Vainglory Wan The Wanderer WL The Wife’s Lament 6 Introduction In a 2009 article on ecopoetry and the Old English elegies, Matt Low states plainly that ‘Medieval studies could do more to embrace the growing theoretical field of ecocriticism’.1 ‘In studies of Medieval texts,’ says Low, ‘particularly those written in Old English during the Anglo-Saxon period, little effort has been made to explore the natural world beyond its function as setting or symbol’.2 Low is absolutely right to draw our attention to this problem and to address it with his own eco-critical reading of the Exeter Book elegies. Whilst efforts have been made to produce green readings of late medieval texts,3 the natural world as an entity in itself has been, until very recently, overlooked in scholarship on Old English texts.4 ‘The abundance of historical, 1 Matt Low, ‘"Heard gripe hruson" (The hard grip of the earth): Ecopoetry and the Anglo-Saxon Elegy’, Mosaic: a Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature, 42 (2009), 1-18 (p. 1). 2 Ibid., p. 1. 3 See, for example, Rebecca M. Douglass, ‘Ecocriticism and Middle English Literature’, in Studies in Medievalism X: Medievalism and the Academy II: Cultural Studies (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2000), pp. 136-63; Gillian Rudd, Greenery: Ecocritical Readings of Late Medieval Literature (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007); Lisa J. Kiser, ‘Chaucer and the Politics of Nature’, Beyond Nature Writing: Expanding the Boundaries of Ecocriticism, ed. by Karla Armbruster and Kathleen R. Wallace (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2001), pp. 41-56; and Sarah Stanbury, ‘EcoChaucer: Green Ethics and Medieval Nature’, Chaucer Review, 39 (2004), 1-16. 4 Helen Price is one of the newly emerging Anglo-Saxon eco-critics. See her unpublished MA dissertation ‘Nature Speaks: Expanding Ecocriticism to the Anglo-Saxon World’ (2010) and her unpublished PhD thesis ‘Human and Nonhuman in Anglo-Saxon and British Postwar Poetry: Reshaping Literary Ecology’ (2013), both completed at the University of Leeds. 7 religious, and linguistic material in Anglo-Saxon texts has dominated most medieval discourses,’ says Low, and thus the ‘nature-centred characteristics of certain Anglo- Saxon texts have largely been bypassed’.5 Low’s observation is especially true of the Old English riddles,6 where much scholarly attention has been given to what the riddles might have to say about Anglo-Saxon society and culture, including service, sex, social relationships, war and heroism.7 With eco-criticism being an ever expanding field, especially in medieval studies, it is time to turn our attention more fully to the depiction of the natural world in the Exeter Book riddles.8 In his eco-critical article, Low focuses his attention on the natural world in the Old English elegies, yet, in many ways, it is the Old English riddles that more readily 5 Low, p. 1. 6 I refer to the ninety-five riddles included in the second half of the manuscript known as ‘the Exeter Book’ (Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501, folios 101r-115r and 124v-130v). All citations from the Old English riddles are from Craig Williamson, The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977). I use Williamson’s edition for the same reasons Patrick Murphy offers in Unriddling the Exeter Riddles (University Park: Pennsylvania University Press, 2011), p. 2 (n. 6). Whilst citations are from Williamson’s edition, I use the ASPR numbering of the riddles, since this is the more conventional system used by critics. Unless stated otherwise, all translations from Old English to modern English, including those texts outside of the riddle collection, are my own. All references to Old English poetry other than the riddles will be taken from the ASPR, unless otherwise noted. 7 For ‘service’, see, for example, Jennifer Neville, ‘The Unexpected Treasure of the “Implement Trope”: Hierarchical Relationships in the Old English Riddles’, The Review of English Studies, n.s., 62 (2011), 505-19; and Neville ‘Speaking the Unspeakable: Appetite for Deconstruction in Exeter Book Riddle 12’, English Studies, 93 (2012), 519-28. There are many different articles on ‘sex’ or ‘relationships’; see, for example, Mercedes Salvador Bello, ‘The Key to the Body: Unlocking Riddles 42-46’, in Naked Before God: Uncovering the Body in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. by Benjamin C. Withers and Jonathan Wilcox (Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2003), pp. 60-96; Nina Rulon-Miller, ‘Sexual Humor and Fettered Desire in Exeter Book Riddle 12’, in Humour in Anglo-Saxon Literature, ed. by Jonathan Wilcox (Cambridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2000), pp. 99-126; and Melanie Heyworth, ‘Perceptions of Marriage in Exeter Book Riddles 20 and 61’, Studia Neophilologica, 79, (2007), 171-84. For ‘war’ and ‘heroism’ see, for example, Eric Gerald Stanley, ‘Heroic Aspects of the Exeter Book Riddles’, in Prosody and Poetics in the Early Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of C. B. Hieatt, ed. by M. J. Toswell (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995), pp. 197-218; John Tanke, ‘The Batchelor-Warrior of Exeter Book Riddle 20’, Philological Quarterly, 79 (2000), 409-27; and Edward B. Irving jr., ‘Heroic Experience in the Old English Riddles’, in Old English Shorter Poems, ed. by Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe (New York: Garland, 1994), pp.
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