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Thought and Action in Old English Poetry and Prose
This chapter is in the book Thought and Action in Old English Poetry and Prose
Chapter 2Body and Soul: Thought and ActioninThe SeafarerFor wherever the soul of man may turn, unless it turns to you, it clasps sorrow to itself.Even though it clings to things of beauty, if their beauty is outside God and outside the soul,it only clings to sorrow.1Augustine,Confessions, 4.10InConfessions, St. Augustine describes his own painful spiritual journey awayfrom worldly considerations and towards“that blessed country which is meant tobe no mere vision, but our home.”2The seafarer, beset by cares and sorrows onhis own journey, sees the beauty of the coming of spring:“Bearwas blostmumnimað, byrig fægriað, / wongas wlitigað, woruld onetteð”(48–49; Groves takeblossoms, cities grow fair / meadows grow beautiful, the world hastens), and yethe reduces all this to the dark oxymoron“þis deade lif / læne on londe”(65b–66a;this dead life, transitory, on land), because he knows that to cling to this worldlybeauty is to cling to sorrow.Through analysis of the patterns of distribution of mental and physical acts,this chapter will show that the narrative voice in the first sixty-six lines of thepoem is not that of a man at all, but a soul trapped and suffering in a body on thejourney of life and eager to return to the heavenly home. It is the poet’s allocationof mental and physical acts which reveals the true identity of the speaker. I arguethatThe Seafarerpresents an imagined first-person insight from the perspectiveof the mind/soul when it is buffeted by the vices and troubles of worldly care de-scribed in the previous chapter. Cassian, like Evagrius before him, describes thevices as external attacks on the mind, orlogismoi, to use the Greek term, and thethoughts buffeting the heart of the speaker do seem to be attacking. This indicatesa monastic approach in the poem, one that has been argued to animate all thepoems in the Exeter Book, most recently by John D. Niles.3Francis Leneghan hasAugustine,Confessions, ed. and trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin (London: Penguin, 1961), 80; Latin:“namquoquoversum se verterit anima hominis, ad dolores figitur alibi praeterquam in te, tametsi figi-tur in pulchris extra te et extra se.”Confessions, ed. and trans. Carolyn J.-B. Hammond, 2 vols.(Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2014), 1.4.10, p. 156.Augustine,Confessions, 7.20, trans. Pine-Coffin, 154. Latin:“beatificum patriam non tantum cer-nendam sed et habitandam”;Confessions,ed.Hammond,1.7.20,p.348.IhavefavoredPine-Coffin’s translations here as they are more poetic.Niles,God’s Exiles.https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501514418-003
© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Chapter 2Body and Soul: Thought and ActioninThe SeafarerFor wherever the soul of man may turn, unless it turns to you, it clasps sorrow to itself.Even though it clings to things of beauty, if their beauty is outside God and outside the soul,it only clings to sorrow.1Augustine,Confessions, 4.10InConfessions, St. Augustine describes his own painful spiritual journey awayfrom worldly considerations and towards“that blessed country which is meant tobe no mere vision, but our home.”2The seafarer, beset by cares and sorrows onhis own journey, sees the beauty of the coming of spring:“Bearwas blostmumnimað, byrig fægriað, / wongas wlitigað, woruld onetteð”(48–49; Groves takeblossoms, cities grow fair / meadows grow beautiful, the world hastens), and yethe reduces all this to the dark oxymoron“þis deade lif / læne on londe”(65b–66a;this dead life, transitory, on land), because he knows that to cling to this worldlybeauty is to cling to sorrow.Through analysis of the patterns of distribution of mental and physical acts,this chapter will show that the narrative voice in the first sixty-six lines of thepoem is not that of a man at all, but a soul trapped and suffering in a body on thejourney of life and eager to return to the heavenly home. It is the poet’s allocationof mental and physical acts which reveals the true identity of the speaker. I arguethatThe Seafarerpresents an imagined first-person insight from the perspectiveof the mind/soul when it is buffeted by the vices and troubles of worldly care de-scribed in the previous chapter. Cassian, like Evagrius before him, describes thevices as external attacks on the mind, orlogismoi, to use the Greek term, and thethoughts buffeting the heart of the speaker do seem to be attacking. This indicatesa monastic approach in the poem, one that has been argued to animate all thepoems in the Exeter Book, most recently by John D. Niles.3Francis Leneghan hasAugustine,Confessions, ed. and trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin (London: Penguin, 1961), 80; Latin:“namquoquoversum se verterit anima hominis, ad dolores figitur alibi praeterquam in te, tametsi figi-tur in pulchris extra te et extra se.”Confessions, ed. and trans. Carolyn J.-B. Hammond, 2 vols.(Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2014), 1.4.10, p. 156.Augustine,Confessions, 7.20, trans. Pine-Coffin, 154. Latin:“beatificum patriam non tantum cer-nendam sed et habitandam”;Confessions,ed.Hammond,1.7.20,p.348.IhavefavoredPine-Coffin’s translations here as they are more poetic.Niles,God’s Exiles.https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501514418-003
© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Acknowledgements VII
  3. Contents IX
  4. Note on Editions XI
  5. Abbreviations XIII
  6. Introduction 1
  7. Chapter 1 Mental and Physical Acts in Old English Prose: the Alfredian Translations, the Sermons of Ælfric, and The Old English Benedictine Rule 15
  8. Chapter 2 Body and Soul: Thought and Action in The Seafarer 33
  9. Chapter 3 A New Kind of Hero? Thought and Action in The Battle of Maldon 69
  10. Chapter 4 A State of Mind: Byrhtnoð and Maldon in the Context of Æðelred’s Eard 99
  11. Chapter 5 The Devil’s Lar: Mental Manipulation in Juliana 127
  12. Conclusion 169
  13. Bibliography 179
  14. Index 191
Readers are also interested in:
https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501514418-003

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Acknowledgements VII
  3. Contents IX
  4. Note on Editions XI
  5. Abbreviations XIII
  6. Introduction 1
  7. Chapter 1 Mental and Physical Acts in Old English Prose: the Alfredian Translations, the Sermons of Ælfric, and The Old English Benedictine Rule 15
  8. Chapter 2 Body and Soul: Thought and Action in The Seafarer 33
  9. Chapter 3 A New Kind of Hero? Thought and Action in The Battle of Maldon 69
  10. Chapter 4 A State of Mind: Byrhtnoð and Maldon in the Context of Æðelred’s Eard 99
  11. Chapter 5 The Devil’s Lar: Mental Manipulation in Juliana 127
  12. Conclusion 169
  13. Bibliography 179
  14. Index 191
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