routledge+history+of+literature+in+english

Personal and religious voices
9
So there is a clash between past and present, between remembered
glory and the despair of the moment. But there is always some
consolation, some hope for the future, usually ending with a hope of
heaven. The speaker – the ‘I’ of the poem – is a figure who will return
again and again in literature through the ages, described here as ‘the
sage, in solitude, pondering’.
Lo! I will tell the dearest of dreams
(The Dream of the Rood)
It would seem that the church, in preserving texts in Old English, was
aware of a particularly English linguistic and cultural identity which,
over the centuries, it would nurture in its own written works in different
genres, as the language moves towards Early Middle English in the
thirteenth century.
The genres include: history, such as the Venerable Bede’s Latin
Ecclesiastical History of the English People and The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle;
devotional works for those dedicated to a life of religious observance, such
as the twelfth-century Ancrene Rewle; philosophy, by Alcuin and Saint
Anselm, and so on. Translations of parts of the Christian Bible were made,
such as The Book of Genesis, a version of which was for a long time believed
to be the work of Caedmon. This was translated from Saxon into Old
English. In its use of the local language, it is a conscious attempt to strengthen
the position of the Christian faith throughout the island.
Perhaps the most clearly Christian of Old English texts is The Dream
of the Rood (the ‘Rood’ is the Cross), one version of which is found on
the Ruthwell Cross, a standing stone in Dumfriesshire (Galloway), in
what is now southern Scotland, quite close to Northumbria where the
original was written, perhaps as early as the end of the seventh century.
One fascinating feature of The Dream of the Rood is the large number
of words, phrases and images used for the figure of Christ and his
cross: a tree, a glorious gold cross, a simple bare cross, and a cross
which speaks of its own transformation from tree to bearer of Christ. As
with many texts of the time there are many references to Latin hymns
and liturgy embedded in the text. It is a highly visual text, full of joy and
suffering, light and darkness, earthly reality and heavenly bliss.