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Bell & Howell Information and Leaming 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 4û1û6-1346 USA THE ANGLO-SAXON MIND: MFTAPHOR AND COMMON SENSE PSYCHOLOGY IN OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE LOW Soon Ai A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Centre for Medieval Studies, in the University of Toronto . @ Copyright by Low Soon Ai 1998 National Library Bibliothèque nationale l*l of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliograp hic Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. nie Wellington Ottawa ON KIA 0W Ottawa ON KIA ON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sel1 reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microfoxm, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfichelfilm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Thesis abstract The Anglo-saxon min& metaphor and common sense psychology in Old English fiterature Doctor of Pfulosophy, 1998 Low Soon Ai Centre for Medieval Studies University of Toronto The rich mental vocabulary of Old English plays a centrai role in the portrayal of menml and emotional processes in Anglo-Saxon literature. An understanding of how this vocabulary refiects the Anglo-saxon concept of mind is the central concem of this thesis. Chapter One considers various approaches to the study of mental vocabulary. Most OE mental terms are polysemous and are used interchangeabiy, and are therefore difficult to distinguish semantically. Focusing on metaphors rather than on individual words may therefore be more fruitful. Chapter Two outiines the cognitive theory of memphor which suggests that metaphor has a greater role in patterns of human conceptuaiiiation than previously reaiized. One function of metaphor is to provide epistemic access to otherwise elusive concepts, so that a concept such as mind is typically metaphorized in terms from the p hysical world. Chapter Three is a survey of the Anglo-Saxon metaphors of the mind. Physical attributes projected ont0 the mind such as spatial orientation, texture, size, etc. are considered together with specific metaphors such as 'mind as container' and 'mind as body'. The question of whether these metaphors reflect a distinctly Angio-Saxon concept of minci is discussed Chapter Four examines the particular pIace in Anglo-saxon culture of the metaphors of fastening and foundation. The role of these metaphors in the expression of spiritual endeavour is considered in wisdom poetry, hagiography and monastic practice. Chapter Five considers the contribution of the cognitive approach to the study of the Anglo-saxon min& focusing on literary cnticism, historical physioiogy, historical psychology and philology. Arguing that a more sophisticated approach to ianguage is necessq if the Anglo-Saxons' worldview is to be reconstructed, the thesis concludes with theoretical considerations, and suggestions for further research. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One: Approaches to mental vocabulary 1 Chapter Two: The role of metaphor . 48 Chapter Three: The metaphors of the Anglo-saxon mind . 81 Chapter Four: Metaphors of fastening and foundation in Old English literature 133 Chapter Five: The cognitive approach and the study of the Anglo-saxon mind 169 Bibliography of works cited . 211 Chapter One: Approaches to mental vocabulary The classification of the constituents of a chaos, nothhg Iess is here essayeci. - Herman Melville, Mobv-Dick The organization of the field of mental vocabulary is especiaiiy difficult because we obviously lack concrete referents for the terms we are trying to define. This difficulty is reflected in the vagueness with which dictionaries and other reference works treat mental terms. Bosworth-Toller's definition for ingehnc, for insmnce, consists of a loose string of ncuns: "Thought, thinking, cogitation, intent, mind, heart, conscience". Clark Hall's entry for ferhb is even more impressionistic: "mind, intellect, soul, spirit: life: person". In its section on mental faculties, the Thesaurus of Old Ennlish has the oddly assorted heading "O6 Spirit, soul, heart", under which an even odder assortment of terms is placed: "ferhp, heorre, heortscrzefi hreber, lichord, mod, modsefa, sawol'tl Al1 of the terms in these various definitions evoke 'the inner life', a domain not susceptible to precise cartography, but they also suggest, 1 think unfortunately, that to the Anglo-saxons there was no proper distinction to be made between such notions as 'soul' and 'mind', or between 'thought' and 'heart'. In particular, the method of the TOE entry is not so much taxonomy as it is mere collecting. It is not clear why, if ferhp, modsefa and d are in the list, related terms such as hyge adsefa should be omitted; similarly, gast is left out even though sawol is included- A better case might actualIy be made for the exclusion of gast and sawol altogether (and a reorganizing of the heading "Spirit, soul, heart"), for there is J. Bosworth and T. N. Toller, An Anglo-saxon dictionarv (Oxford, 1964 [1898]) with Sumlement by T. N. Toller (Oxford, 1955 1192 l]),hereafter referred to as and respectively, and Revised and enlareed addenda by A. Camp bel1 (Oxford, 1972), hereafter referred to as BTAdd; J. R. Clark Hall and H-Meritt, A concise Anelo-Saxon dictionary, 4th. edn. (Cambridge, 1960);Jane Roberts and Christian Kay and Lynne Grundy, A . thesaurus of Old Endish: vols 1 & II (London, 1995), hereafter referred to as mE good reason to suppose that the Anglo-Saxons separated the notions of 'spirit and soul' from those of 'hmand minci'. Gast and sawol quite clearly denote the spiritual part of man, which survives the body at death but which does not seem to take part in mundane psychological and experiential processes, as d and the other more purely 'mental' terms do. Naturally, sawol and gast are frequentiy used in opposition to the mortal body, lic, lichama or ffzesc, and with reference to the next world This passage from Juliana is rypical (u413):~ Ic b~resawle ma geornor gyme ymb bacs -tes forwyrd bonne bacs lichoman, se be on legre sceal weoraan in worulde wyrme to hrobor, bifolen in foldan. '1 am more concerned with the destruction of the soul and of the spirit than of the body, which must become in this worid a feast for the worm in the grave, committed to the earth'. The devil, under interrogation by the saint, explains that his work is to destroy souls and spirits rather thân bodies and (signifiant by omission) minds. There would have been no question of a word such as nmrl substituting for either sawol or gast here. In one of Elfric's homilies, it appears at first that sawol is used in an emotional, experiential sense much as we expect words like &and sefa to be used in the poeay (ECHorn 1.30 433.135; italics mine): OPre martyras on heora licharnan browodon martyrdom for cristes geleafan: ac seo eadige maria naes na lichamlice gemaqrod. Ac hire sawul wæs &de geangsumod mid micelre pmwunge. Pa ba heo stod dreorig foran ongean cristes raie & hire leofe cild geseah mid isenum n~glumon heardum treowe gefatstnod: Nu is heo mare bnnemartyr for ban de heo browade Pone martyrdom on hire sawle obre mrtyras Prowodon on heora lichaman. * My citations of Old English and Latin texts will follow (unless othenvise indicated) the system of short titles used by the Dictionary of Old Enalish as set out in A. diP. Heaiey and R. L Venezky, A microfiche concordance to Old Enelish: the list of texts and index of editions (Toronto, 1980; rev. May 1997) and also Dictionarv of Old Enalish: abbreviations for latin sources and biblio~ra~hvof editions, compiled by Pauline A, Thompson with the assistance of Robert Stanton (Toronto, 1992; rev. March 1995). 'Other martyrs suffered martyrdom in their bodies for their faith in Christ, but the blessed Mary was not physically martyre& Her soul was exceedingly afflicted with much suffering when she stood, miserable, before Christ's cross, and saw her beloved child fasteneci to the hard wood with iron nails. Now, she is greater than a martyr for the reason that she suffered the maqrdom in her soul which other martyrs suffered in their bodies'.