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‘The Dream of the Rood’ and Anglo-Saxon Monasticism*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

John V. Fleming*
Affiliation:
Princeton University

Extract

The earliest text of The Dream of the Rood consists of a few lines of runic inscriptions carved around the edges of a North English high cross now at Ruthwell in Dumfriesshire. It represents no more than a fragment of the text as we find it in the Vercelli MS, a short passage describing the Crucifixion and the ordeal of the Cross. The precise relationship between the Ruthwell runes and the Vercelli poem is a matter of conjecture and dispute. To some critics the Ruthwell inscriptions represent an ‘earlier poem,’ of which the Vercelli text is an expansion or a later revision or both. It is a question to which I shall wish to devote some attention in due course. For the present, I would suggest that the runic inscriptions provide a valuable clue to the interpretation of the Vercelli poem along lines so far left unexplored; for the runes form a part of a rich iconographic program, developing a unified meaning closely connected with the figurative meaning of The Dream of the Rood.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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