Signs That Sing

Abstract

Signs That Sing argues that Anglo-Saxon poets wrote by drawing from a broad range of verbal resources: oral tradition, ecclesiastical literature, and Christian liturgy. Hybrid oral, written, and liturgical ways of speaking form a fundamental poetic strategy in Old English verse. In the field of medieval literature, written oral-traditional idioms, such as formulaic systems, themes, typescenes, and story patterns, are commonly recognized as hybrid expressions. Signs That Sing describes two other major types of hybrid poetic expression: ritual signs and idioms that fuse oral and literate modes of interpretation. This book demonstrates how hybrid expressions play meaningful roles in Advent Lyrics (Christ I), “Alms-Giving,” Andreas, The Battle of Maldon, Beowulf, Deor, The Dream of the Rood, Genesis A/B, The Gifts of Men, Soul and Body I and II, Thureth, Widsith, and select riddles. By viewing hybrid expressions as a creative resource for Anglo-Saxon poets, we are in a better position to appreciate the rhetorical complexity of their poems. Ultimately, Signs That Sing presents new ways of reading and interpreting Old English poems, while offering scholars of orality and ritual studies theoretical and practical implications for the study of hybrid texts.