The Politics of Tradition: Examining the History of the Old English Poems "The Wife's Lament" and "Wulf and Eadwacer"

In recent years Anglo-Saxonist scholars have widened the scope of their studies to include not only various aspects of Anglo-Saxon society and literature, but also, selfquestioningly, their own discipline. Through an in-depth study of the scholarship on "The Wife's Lament" and "Wulf and Eadwacer", this thesis examines the roles of these scholars in the critical history of the two poems. The poems are two of the most haunting and at the same time cryptic texts of the entire Old English corpus. Because of these characteristics, the research they inspire is wide-ranging, imaginative and sometimes provocative. The thesis focuses mainly on two aspects of scholarly research: the emergence of a professional identity among Anglo-Saxonist scholars and their choice of either a metaphoric or metonymic approach to the material. A final chapter studies the concomitant changes within Old English feminist studies. Acknowledgments 9 Introduction 10 The framework of tradition in Old English studies 11 Previous research 14 A brief history of Old English studies 18 Theoretical background 24 Chapter one: tools and terms 29 Metaphor, metonymy and anamorphosis 29 Identity 31 Alterity 33 Chapter two: Old English poetry and Anglo-Saxonist scholarship 39 Old English poetry, problems and opportunities 39 Determining the text 41 The canonical nature of Anglo-Saxon scholarship 45 The poems 47 Wulf and Eadwacer 48 The Wife's Lament 52 Chapter three: identity construction 58 Professional identities within Old English studies 58 Identity construction in the past 60 Identity construction in the present 62 Previous research into identity construction 65 Constructions of a professional identity through 'Wife' and 'Wulf' 68 Identity through religion and ancestry 68 Identity through continuity 74 Identity construction through alterity 77 Chapter four: metaphoric and metonymic readings 81 Closing or opening the system 81 Metaphoric readings of 'Wife' and 'Wulf' 83 Search for related texts 83 Substitution of cultures 87 Metonymic readings of 'Wife' and 'Wulf' 89 Cross-cultural interpretations 89 Chapter five: feminist studies 94 Feminism in medieval studies 94 Authorship and representation 97 Essentialist feminist approaches to Old English literature 98 Theoretically-informed feminist research 104 Gendered voices and textual femininity 105 Frauenlieder 107 Conclusion 114 Coda 117 Whither research in Old English poetry? 117 Further research 118 Appendix 120 Wulf and Eadwacer 120 The Wife's Lament 121 Appendix II 123 Bibliography of texts on 'The Wife's Lament' and 'Wulf and Eadwacer' 123 General bibliography 129 Works cited 129 Works consulted 142 Index of names 147