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The Cross as Psychopomp: The Dream of the Rood, Lines 135–44

  • Thomas D. Hill
Published/Copyright: December 6, 2010
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Anglia
From the journal Volume 128 Issue 1

Abstract

One striking feature of the iconography of The Dream of the Rood is that in the conclusion of the poem the Dreamer speaks of the Cross as a “psychopomp”, a spiritual guide who will lead the Dreamer to joy in heaven. No convincing sources or parallels for this conception have been cited in the tradition of commentary on the Old English poem, but there are broad parallels for this conception in homiletic tradition, which seem to have inspired some prayers in liturgical texts which explicitly speak of the Cross as a psychopomp. These prayers thus provide a close parallel and arguably a source for this motif in The Dream of the Rood.

Published Online: 2010-12-06
Published in Print: 2010-October

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Medieval English Texts: Source Studies and New Editions. Introduction
  2. Alkuin von York und die angelsächsische Rätseldichtung
  3. The Cross as Psychopomp: The Dream of the Rood, Lines 135–44
  4. A Doomsday Passage in an Old English Sermon for Lent, Revisited
  5. Mapping the Anglo-Saxon Intellectual Landscape: The Old English Maxims I and Terence's Proverb “Quot homines, tot sententiae”
  6. The City of Babylon in the Middle English Floris and Blancheflour
  7. Saint Etheldreda in the South English Legendary
  8. The Hunttyng of the Hare in the Heege Manuscript
  9. Joybrato Mukherjee, Anglistische Korpuslinguistik: Eine Einführung
  10. Varieties of English, ed. Bernd Kortmann & Edgar W. Schneider. Vol. 1: The British Isles, ed. Bernd Kortmann & Clive Upton; Vol. 2: The Americas and the Caribbean, ed. Edgar W. Schneider; Vol. 3: The Pacific and Australasia, ed. Kate Burridge & Bernd Kortmann; Vol. 4: Africa, South and Southeast Asia, ed. Rajend Mesthrie
  11. Thomas Biermeier, Word-formation in New Englishes: A Corpus-based Analysis
  12. Speech Acts in the History of English, ed. Andreas H. Jucker & Irma Taavitsainen
  13. The Oxford History of Literary Translation in English. Vol. 1: To 1550, ed. Roger Ellis
  14. Richard W. Pfaff, The Liturgy in Medieval England: A History
  15. Janie Steen, Verse and Virtuosity: The Adaptation of Latin Rhetoric in Old English Poetry
  16. Early Modern Prose Fiction: The Cultural Politics of Reading, ed. Naomi Conn Liebler
  17. Anja Müller, Framing Childhood in Eighteenth-Century English Periodicals and Prints 1689–1789
  18. Rudolf Beck, Nymphen, Zyklopen und Satanic Mills: Funktionsgeschichtliche Studien zur englischen Literatur im Zeitalter der Industriellen Revolution
  19. Place and Memory in the New Ireland, ed. Britta Olinder & Werner Huber
  20. Der zeitgenössische englische Roman: Genres – Entwicklungen – Modellinterpretationen, ed. Vera Nünning
  21. Sylvia Lange, Die Figurenzeichnung bei William Faulkner: Dargestellt an ausgewählten Yoknapatawpha-Romanen
  22. Sven Strasen, Rezeptionstheorien: Literatur- sprach- und kulturwissenschaftliche Ansätze und kulturelle Modelle
  23. Mediation, Remediation and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory, ed. Astrid Erll & Ann Rigney
  24. Eingegangene Schriften
https://doi.org/10.1515/angl.2010.004

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Medieval English Texts: Source Studies and New Editions. Introduction
  2. Alkuin von York und die angelsächsische Rätseldichtung
  3. The Cross as Psychopomp: The Dream of the Rood, Lines 135–44
  4. A Doomsday Passage in an Old English Sermon for Lent, Revisited
  5. Mapping the Anglo-Saxon Intellectual Landscape: The Old English Maxims I and Terence's Proverb “Quot homines, tot sententiae”
  6. The City of Babylon in the Middle English Floris and Blancheflour
  7. Saint Etheldreda in the South English Legendary
  8. The Hunttyng of the Hare in the Heege Manuscript
  9. Joybrato Mukherjee, Anglistische Korpuslinguistik: Eine Einführung
  10. Varieties of English, ed. Bernd Kortmann & Edgar W. Schneider. Vol. 1: The British Isles, ed. Bernd Kortmann & Clive Upton; Vol. 2: The Americas and the Caribbean, ed. Edgar W. Schneider; Vol. 3: The Pacific and Australasia, ed. Kate Burridge & Bernd Kortmann; Vol. 4: Africa, South and Southeast Asia, ed. Rajend Mesthrie
  11. Thomas Biermeier, Word-formation in New Englishes: A Corpus-based Analysis
  12. Speech Acts in the History of English, ed. Andreas H. Jucker & Irma Taavitsainen
  13. The Oxford History of Literary Translation in English. Vol. 1: To 1550, ed. Roger Ellis
  14. Richard W. Pfaff, The Liturgy in Medieval England: A History
  15. Janie Steen, Verse and Virtuosity: The Adaptation of Latin Rhetoric in Old English Poetry
  16. Early Modern Prose Fiction: The Cultural Politics of Reading, ed. Naomi Conn Liebler
  17. Anja Müller, Framing Childhood in Eighteenth-Century English Periodicals and Prints 1689–1789
  18. Rudolf Beck, Nymphen, Zyklopen und Satanic Mills: Funktionsgeschichtliche Studien zur englischen Literatur im Zeitalter der Industriellen Revolution
  19. Place and Memory in the New Ireland, ed. Britta Olinder & Werner Huber
  20. Der zeitgenössische englische Roman: Genres – Entwicklungen – Modellinterpretationen, ed. Vera Nünning
  21. Sylvia Lange, Die Figurenzeichnung bei William Faulkner: Dargestellt an ausgewählten Yoknapatawpha-Romanen
  22. Sven Strasen, Rezeptionstheorien: Literatur- sprach- und kulturwissenschaftliche Ansätze und kulturelle Modelle
  23. Mediation, Remediation and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory, ed. Astrid Erll & Ann Rigney
  24. Eingegangene Schriften
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