The purpose of the research presented here is to discover the central concept of "The Rhyming Poem," an Old English Christian work known only from a 10th-century manuscript, and to establish the poem's natural place in the body of Old English poetry. Existing critical literature shows little agreement about the poem's origin, vocabulary, plot, or first-person narrator, and no single translation has satisfactorily captured a sense of the poem's unity or of the purposeful vision behind it.
The examination of text and context here shows that the Old English poet has created a unified vision in which religious teachings are artistically related through imagery and form. He worked in response to a particular set of conditions in early Church history, employing both pagan and Christian details to convey a message of the superiority of Christianity to idol-worship and, as well, of the validity of the Augustinian position on Original Sin over that of the heretical Pelagians.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc331700 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Turner, Kandy M. (Kandy Morrow) |
| Contributors | Rich, Carroll Y., Tanner, James T. F., Kirkpatrick, Hugh, Stevens, L. Robert |
| Publisher | North Texas State University |
| Source Sets | University of North Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | i, 154 leaves, Text |
| Rights | Public, Turner, Kandy M. (Kandy Morrow), Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. |
Page generated in 0.002 seconds