The study of the theme of dom and the Old English Doomsday verse (Judgment Day I, Judgment Day II and Christ III) begins with an investigation of the word-symbol itself and its possible meanings in poetic context. The initial, philological analysis is not intended to be exhaustive (and examples are largely limited to the poetic corpus), but rather to answer such questions as why one monosyllable can have such divergent referents as "law", "fate", "judgment", "wisdom", "selfassessment", "opinion" and both "heroic" "fame" and Christian "glory", and also to aid our understanding of the possible nuances of meaning of dom in the poetry. The method is intended to add an important perspective to an historical approach to medieval literature, for it can lead to a deeper appreciation of the poetic "word-hoard" and the complexity of associations particular word-symbols might have evoked in the Anglo-Saxon audience. Dom is analyzed initially in the light of Peter Clemoes' statement that Old English words can be "nuclei of meaning, symbols of integrated experience, [and] aggregates of traditional association". The semantic investigation leads on to a study of the concept of dom as both "heroic" reputation, the "pagan consolation", and the complex Christian idea of "glory", in particular referring to the after-life. An appreciation of the way in which a word was adopted and baptized by the Christian poets illustrates how the successful fusion of heroic and Christian concepts took place in Anglo-Saxon times, and how the "word-hoard", the traditional vocabulary and metaphors, was adapted to convey
the new and complex doctrines. The study of a semantic shift can shed light on the evolution of an idea.
The major part of the study is devoted to an analysis of the eschatological poetry in the light of the semantic investigation, for in these works the relationship between the divergent referents of dom and the parallels between heroic and Christian ideas of the after-life can be demonstrated best. The poets of the Doomsday verse do not simply recount the traditional, eschatological events, but treat the biblical, patristic and apocryphal accounts of the Last Things imaginatively and figuratively in order to stress their didactic theme which is that the moment of Judgment is ever-present and that immortality is gained by the individual's constant attempt to approximate what is considered the state of perfection. The themes of Judgment Day and the Apocalypse are very minor and, like the accounts of hell with which they are often confused, used as an incentive to better living. The poems are centripetal, aimed at instructing the individual at the present moment. The nature of the reward is rarely discussed and if so often in negative terms. Consequently, the Christian concept of dom as "glory", divine "fame", is akin to the earlier "heroic" one. Both traditions, based on hierarchical principles, stress that man's duty is to strive continuously towards a perfection which was conceived of in terms of the ethical law, although the nature of that law and the future reward differed. The important dom "judgment" rests with the individual to choose to act in a dorngeorn ("eager for glory") state and gain the sodfrestra dom "the glory of the righteous" like Beowulf or the Christian saint. Thus the concepts of dom as "decision", "judgment", "glory", etc. are seen to be inextricably fused, as are the heroic and Christian traditions in AngloSaxon times. Such findings also substantiate what was discovered in the semantic study, and the philological and literary-thematic analyses complement each other. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/15599 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Caie, Graham Douglas |
| Contributors | Lee, A. A., English |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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