Vainglory (Old English poem)
Encyclopedia
Vainglory is the title given to an Old English gnomic or homiletic poem of eighty-four lines, preserved in the Exeter Book
. The precise date of composition is unknown, but the fact of its preservation in a late tenth-century manuscript gives us an approximate terminus ante quem. The poem is structured around a comparison of two basic opposites of human conduct; on the one hand, the proud man, who “is the devil's child, enwreathed in flesh” (biþ feondes bearn / flæsce bifongen), and, on the other hand, the virtuous man, characterised as "God’s own son" (godes agen bearn).
Exeter Book
The Exeter Book, Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501, also known as the Codex Exoniensis, is a tenth-century book or codex which is an anthology of Anglo-Saxon poetry. It is one of the four major Anglo-Saxon literature codices. The book was donated to the library of Exeter Cathedral by Leofric, the...
. The precise date of composition is unknown, but the fact of its preservation in a late tenth-century manuscript gives us an approximate terminus ante quem. The poem is structured around a comparison of two basic opposites of human conduct; on the one hand, the proud man, who “is the devil's child, enwreathed in flesh” (biþ feondes bearn / flæsce bifongen), and, on the other hand, the virtuous man, characterised as "God’s own son" (godes agen bearn).
Editions and translations
- Shippey, T. A. (ed. and tr.) (1976) Poems of Wisdom and Learning in Old English. Cambridge: U. P.; pp. 54-57.
- Pickford, T. E. (ed.) (1974) "An edition of ’Vainglory" in: Parergon; 10 (1974); pp. 1-40.
- Krapp, G.P., and Dobbie, E. V. K. (eds.) (1936) The Exeter Book. (Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records; 3.) New York: Columbia U. P.
Secondary literature
- Clover, Carol J. (1980) "The Germanic Context of the Unferth Episode" in: Speculum; 55.3 (1980): pp. 444-68: pp. 448-49.
- Huppé, Bernard F. (1970) The Web of Words: structural analyses of the Old English poems "Vainglory", "The Wonder of Creation", "The Dream of the Rood" and "Judith" Albany: State University of New York Press
- McKinnell, John (1991) "A Farewell to Old English Elegy: the case of Vainglory" in: Parergon 9.2 (1991); pp. 67-89.
- Regan, Catherine A. (1970) "Patristic Psychology in the Old English Vainglory" in: Traditio; 26 (1970); pp. 324-35.
- Trahern, Joseph B. (1975) "Caesarius, Chrodegang, and the Old English Vainglory" in: Gesellschaft, Kultur, Literatur: Beiträge Luitpold Wallach gewidmet, ed. Karl Bosl. (Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters; 2.) Stuttgart pp. 167-78.
External links
- Old English text, The Labyrinth. Resources for Medieval Studies.
- Recitation (audio) and translation, Anglo-Saxon Aloud (comp. Michael D. C. Drout)
- The Literary Encyclopedia