7/6/2023 0 Comments Auxilium mihi necesse est![]() ![]() ![]() This thesis analyses the usage of these designations. Designations for God in Old English poetry inhabit a position at the meeting point of Christian theological thought and Old English poetic diction. However, the Christian God can be comprehended through his manifestations in this world and thus potentially bears all names. In the case of God, that quality transcends our understanding and the true name therefore cannot be known. A name – for Cynewulf – expresses the quality of that which is named. Cynewulf knew that for mankind, the name of the Redeemer is inexpressible and unfathomable. This 2006 PhD thesis studies designations for the Christian God as part of Old English poetic diction. However, the Old English Life as it has been transmitted to us has been affected by scribes' familiarity with the Gallicanum text. The original translator of the vita into Old English adjusted the handling of psalm quotations for his audience, but did recognise that Felix was using the Romanum text. Similar misidentifications have been made by copyists of both Felix's vita and its Old English translation. This chapter argues that Felix is quoting the Romanum rather than the Gallicanum text of the Psalter, and consequently some of the psalm quotations in Colgrave's edition of the vita have been misidentified. However, as the Psalter was not a single, consistent text in Anglo-Saxon England, the psalms carried in the memories of Felix, his copyists, translators and adaptors differed from one another. As the Psalter was committed to memory and frequently spoken, it served as a ready source of imagery and phrases, inspiring and shaping the works that monastic writers such as Felix produced. This chapter examines psalm quotation in Felix's Vita sancti Guthlaci and its Old English prose translation. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |