Treasure and spiritual exile in Old English "Juliana": Heroic diction and allegory of reading in Cynewulf’s art of adaptation
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Date
2013
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Adam Mickiewicz University
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Abstract
The present article studies Cynewulf’s creative manipulation of heroic style in his hagiographic
poem Juliana written around the 9th century A.D. The four poems now attributed to Cynewulf, on
the strength of his runic autographs appended to each, Christ II, Elene, The Fates of the Apostles,
and Juliana are written in the Anglo-Saxon tradition of heroic alliterative verse that Anglo-
Saxons had inherited from their continental Germanic ancestors. In Juliana, the theme of treasure
and exile reinforces the allegorical structure of Cynewulf’s poetic creation. In such poems like
Beowulf and Seafarer treasure signifies the stability of bonds between people and tribes. The
exchange of treasure and ritualistic treasure-giving confirms bonds between kings and their subjects.
In Juliana, however, treasure is identified with heathen culture and idolatry. The traditional
imagery of treasure, so central to Old English poetic lore, is inverted in the poem, as wealth and
gold embody vice and corruption. The rejection of treasure and renunciation of kinship bonds
indicate piety and chastity. Also, while in other Old English secular poems exile is cast in terms
of deprivation of human company and material values, in Juliana the possession of and preoccupation
with treasure indicates spiritual exile and damnation. This article argues that the inverted
representations of treasure and exile in the poem lend additional strength to its allegorical elements
and sharpen the contrast between secular world and Juliana, who is an allegorical representation
of the Church.
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Cynewulf, Juliana, St. Juliana of Nicomedia, Old English poetry, Middle Ages
Citation
Studia Anglica Posnaniensia, vol. 48.2-3 (2013), pp. 55-70