Dream Of The Rood

895 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Analysis of British poetry

The Dream of the Rood, one of the few actual pieces of Anglo-Saxon literature, is a basic advertence for the cryptic ability of England's aboriginal ancestors. Argued as one of the oldest pieces of Old English Literature, The Dream of the Rood finer embodies the attenuated culture, moral code, and religious belief of its alien author. In the composition the narrator recalls a eyes he accustomed in a dream, area he encounters the rood on which Christ was crucified. The rood's dictation, steeped with references to both Pagan and Christian culture, implies the abject accord he aggregate with Christ as that of a aristocrat and thane. Furthermore, the beheading arena is metaphorically illustrated as a activity and elevates both Christ and the rood …show more content…

The accord is subtlety appropriate if the dreamer assemblage the rood began to drain on the appropriate ancillary as Christ had, implying the inseparable affiliation amid aristocrat and thane. This band is after caked if the rood and Christ are depicted in activity calm and the rood obediently follows the desires of his lord, abandoning that he did "not dare, adjoin the chat of the Lord/ bow or break, if I saw the/ corners of the apple tremble" (35-38). The act of the nails acute Christ and actually band him to the rood serves as a attenuate allegorical advertence to the adamantine adherence of a thane to his lord. This lord/thane accord is after broadcast to the band amid the Christians and Christ, area in a kenning Christ's followers are referred to as "the Lord's thanes" (75). At the cessation of the poem, the narrator himself accepts this lord/thane accord with Christ. Just as the lords of age-old times presented thanes with treasures for their service, the artist commendations this eyes of the gold-enameled cantankerous as a allowance from God and is appropriately apprenticed by the Anglo-Saxon cipher of conduct to serve

Show More
Related

  • Wealth In Beowulf

    707 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Beowulf drank to those presents, not ashamed to be praised, richly rewarded in front of them all. No ring-giver has given four such gifts, passed such treasures through his hands, with the grace and warmth that Hrothgar showed.” This quote highlights one of the many themes in the book, Beowulf, that theme being wealth. Beowulf makes such an interesting topic to discuss because it covers the normalities in Anglo-Saxon culture, the ethics of gift-giving and how these customs have carried over into today’s world.

    Read More

  • Beowulf Compare And Contrast

    874 Words  | 2 Pages

    It is stacked into pontoons as ruin, gave out in bowed bars as corridor blessings, covered in the earth as fortune, enduring underground as an insistence of a people 's magnificent past and an epitaph for it. Before the end of the sonnet, gold has experienced a radiation the Christian vision. It is not that it yet measures up to wealth in the medieval feeling of common defilement, simply that its status as the metal of the sum total of what esteem has been placed in uncertainty, however in the movie gold was a symbol of moral corruption if

    Read More

  • Beowulf, Sir Gawain, and the Knight in the Wife of Bath's Tale

    1466 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ourneys, these men go in as an average man of the time, face a challenge that the Church thought a man of the day might experience, and come out purified and learned, as a man of those periods should behave. These stories are examples of how a life should be lived and the challenges that one may encounter. While the frames of these narratives change from fictitious to realistic according to the flow of Christianity-based, Northeastern literature, they each are pictures of the mentality of their times. As time progressed, so did the mentalities, which were heavily influenced by Christianity. This is evident in the slow removal of pagan beliefs in the supernatural monsters like dragons and giants into the more realistic literary frames. While all have their differences due to changing times, the hero's journey as a model for the everyday man is clear in these poems.

    Read More

  • Dreamer of The Rood.

    406 Words  | 1 Pages

    Dreamer of The Rood Throughout the course of history there have been many pieces of literature that have contained characters that are portrayed as heroic. Two great examples of this are "Beowulf" and "Dreamer of the Rood". Both of these pieces of literary work had main characters that were considered Anglo-Saxon heroes for their time. When reading the two stories you can see many similar characteristics when it comes to describing a hero. This is because the writer who wrote "Dreamer of the Rood" copied some of the characteristics from the epic poem "Beowulf".

    Read More

  • Symbolism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

    1450 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a medieval poem by an unknown author, written in Middle English in the 14th century. This poem is uncanny to most poems about heroism and knightly quests as it doesn’t follow the complete circle seen in other heroism tales. This poem is different to all the rest as it shows human weaknesses as well as strengths which disturbs the myth of the perfect knight, or the faultless hero. The author uses symbolism as a literary device in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to give the plot a deeper and more significant meaning. Symbolism is used to emphasise the difference of this heroism story against others and therefore symbolism is of great importance in this poem. The importance of the following symbols will be discussed in this paper; the pentangle, the colour green, the Green Knight, the exchange of winnings game, the axe and the scar. This paper argues the significance of the use of symbolism as a literary device in the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

    Read More

  • Adapting To Life After Child Abuse: Dave Pelzer

    989 Words  | 2 Pages

    It is the story of Dave Pelzer, who was brutally beaten and starved by his emotionally unstable, alcoholic mother: a mother who played tortuous, unpredictable games that left him nearly dead. Dave's bed was an old army cot in the basement, and his clothes were torn and raunchy. When his mother allowed him the luxury of food, it was nothing more than spoiled scraps that even the dogs refused to eat. The outside world knew nothing of his living nightmare. He had nothing and no one to turn to, but his dreams kept him alive. To this day Dave Pelzer still suffers from lingering pychological effects. The willful infliction of pain and suffering upon children is known as child abuse and is treated by society as a serious crime. Children are so extremely vulnerable and defenseless, it is thought, that no excuse is possible for mistreating them. Even so, abuse is believed to be widespread. Despite strict laws against it, it sometimes goes unreported and unpunished. Perpetrators of child abuse are most often the child’s own parents. A study done in 2005 showed 79.4 percent of perpetrators were parents, and 6.8 percent were other relatives. Almost 1 out of every 100 children in the United States are abused as a child and an average of 5 children die everyday from child abuse (USDHHS). Some cases may be more extreme then others, but child abuse still has a dramatic effect on a person’s life as it continues to effect the victim through their adoloscence and into their adult hood. Not only does child abuse affect a person’s relationship life, but structuring them on who they become in life by altering specific triggers in their brain. What effects does child abuse have on a child’s life from their adolescence and into their adulthood?

    Read More

  • The Canterbury Tales And Sir Gawain And The Green Knight

    1644 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...ghthood within their story. Both poets remind the readers of the disparity between the ideals of chivalries presented in romances, and the reality of lived knighthood, highlighting how problematic the understanding of chivalry and Christianity (knighthood) could be for medieval audiences. Though chivalry shines as a brilliant light of the high civilization in the fourteenth century, both tales suggests that chivalry is at best a limited system, which achieves its brilliant at the cost of a distortion of natural life. It was part of the social and ethical system but did not take into account the entire range of human needs, mainly the fact of human morality and sense of human frailty. The context in which knights are depicted and celebrated in the medieval romance does not support a smooth connection between the harsh realities of a century of internecine strife.

    Read More

  • Comparing the Heroes in The Dream of the Rood and Beowulf

    1218 Words  | 3 Pages

    In The Dream of the Rood, the poet has added elements of the idealized heroic death (as exemplified in Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon) to the crucifixion. He has also eliminated details of the story that tend to render Christ as a figure of pathos, in order to further Christ's identification with the other glorious warriors Anglo-Saxon poems.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Pride In Beowulf

    1337 Words  | 3 Pages

    One of the first literary work studied by our class was “Beowulf,” the longest and greatest surviving Anglo-Saxon poem. The poem is packed full of Christian and Pagan elements that are constantly fighting for the dominant position. In order to understand these thematic elements portrayed throughout “Beowulf,” we must first discover

    Read More

  • A Comparsion of The Dream of the Road and The York Play of the Crucifixion

    1634 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Anglo-Saxon poem known as, The Dream of the Rood is the reverse image of the crucifixion. The Dream of the Rood is unique in describing the crucifixion from the vantage point of the Cross, and within the framework of a dream. In comparison, The York Play of the Crucifixion discusses each step in the process of tying Christ to the cross. Both representations of the crucifixion compare and contrast each other.

    Read More

  • The Moral Symbolism of the Green Girdle

    1814 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...eas in one symbol is critical to the theme of morality and overall meaning of the poem, because it comments on the nature of morality and what moral behavior for a knight really is. Even court life need not be washed completely of human sin and the natural instincts all animals rely on, for being godly, as Gawain is, should not be viewed as the primary characteristic of being moral. There should be a balance between humanity and godliness, similar to Aristotle's idea of a golden mean, that all these knights seek. By showing that knights should achieve this balance, the author extends his message to the common people, who looked to knights as role models of morality. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight challenges the contemporary ideals of morality, presenting instead a golden mean that the common people would not have associated with their knightly role models before.

    Read More

  • Sir Gawain: The Quest of Reason

    1364 Words  | 3 Pages

    The poem’s intricately balanced structure challenges the reader to seek out a resolution coherent with his or her own ethics. An admirable knight of King Arthur's renowned court, Sir Gawain is directed by a complex set of ethos, a collaboration of principles symbolized by the mystical pentangle. A five-pointed star composed of five interlocking lines; the figure represents a multitude of guiding tenets, representing both religious and knightly ideals. One can recognize that “the pentangle cognizance is explicated by the poet to signal Gawain’s complete Christian perfection, and for the reader to be aware of contemporary concerns about magical protective practices, hinting at human frailty” (Hardman 251).

    Read More

  • Jesus the Warrior in The Dream of the Rood

    1906 Words  | 4 Pages

    Greenblatt, Stephen, and M. H. Abrams. "The Dream of The Rood." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. 27-29. Print.

    Read More

  • Anthem for Doomed Youth and Facing It

    1226 Words  | 3 Pages

    Owen presents us a sarcastic view towards the idea of being honorable to sacrifice for their country and buttresses it with abundant of horrific images. It is a war sonnet that captures the feelings of survivors to those who lost their lives in war. The use of a sonnet creates a sense of intensity in his poem, briefness and portrays the nature of death on a battlefield. Moreover, Owen uses the rhyme scheme of “ababcdcdeffegg” to show the strong division between the lines. The choice of a sonnet allows Owen to convey his message effectively and remain emotional to keep the readers interested. His tone in the poem is gloomy and proposes the reader to consider the question at the beginning of the poem: “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle” (1). Their deaths are significant to those of cattle and it occurs in masses. This leads the reader to consider t...

    Read More

  • The Wanderer: A struggle with Faith

    1111 Words  | 3 Pages

    The speaker of the poem describes a great loss, remembering the time when he was happy with his kinsmen, “Thus spoke such a ‘grasshopper’, old griefs in his mind, cold slaughters, the death of dear kinsmen….None are there now among the living to who I dare declare me thoroughly, tell my hearts thought” (6-12). The strongest relationship during the Anglo-Saxon time was through comitatus, and with the death of his lord and kinsmen, this was taken away from him. Now without his support system of his comitatus the speaker is lost, and becomes a wanderer. The horrible experience he has had of losing his lord has shaken his traditional Anglo-Saxon beliefs, and he looks toward Christianity for a different answer.

    Read More

More about Dream Of The Rood

Open Document