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The vision of paradise: a symbolic reading of the Old English Phoenix

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Daniel G. Calder
Daniel G. Calder
Affiliation:
The University of California, Los Angeles
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Extract

The classification of The Phoenix as a Christian allegory has obscured the perception that the poem may contain a single symbolic vision, for the attention given the poem has always centred on the apparent allegorizations drawn from the Lactantian De Ave Phoenice. The long description of paradise at the beginning, the phoenix's journey from paradise, its fiery death and resurrection – elements derived from Lactantius and expanded by a clearly Christian reading – invite the exegete to untangle a carefully woven allegorical web. The exegetical approaches are, in some ways, justified. Even Lactantius's poem, which at no time refers to a system of Christian theology, is legitimately subject to this kind of inquiry, for the phoenix, standing by itself, had been a symbol charged with Christian meaning since the earliest patristic writers. Augustine's words may be taken as a summary statement for the Christian interpretation: ‘Quod enim de phoenice loqueris … Resurrectionem quippe ilia significat corporum.’ In practice, however, strict allegorical readings of The Phoenix have not proved very helpful. An ever-changing perspective in the poem makes it difficult to discover a logically coherent and consistent pattern of allegorical meaning, and attempts to find such a pattern have led either to disappointment with the poem or to an exegetical system so rigid that it falsifies the poem itself.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 1 , January 1972 , pp. 167 - 181
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

Page 167 note 1 See Arturo, Graf (Miti, Leggende e Superstizioni del Medio Evo (1892–1893; repr. Bologna, 1965) 1, 40–1Google Scholar) who discounts the Lactantian authorship of De Ave Phoenice. See also Lactanti De Ave Phoenice, ed. Fitzpatrick, Mary C. (Philadelphia, 1933)Google Scholar. (All quotations are taken from this edition.) For various interpretations of what the Old English poet has done with his source one should also consult Emerson, Oliver F., ‘Originality in Old English Poetry’, RES 2 (1926), 18–31Google Scholar; Blake, N. F., ‘Some Problems of Interpretation and Translation of the Old English Phoenix’, Anglia 80 (1962), 50Google Scholar; and Cross, J. E., ‘The Conception of the Old English Phoenix’, Old English Poetry: Fifteen Essays, ed. Creed, Robert P. (Providence, R.I., 1967), p. 45.Google Scholar

Page 167 note 2 De Anima et ejus Origine, Migne, Patrologia Latina 44, col. 543. ‘What indeed you say about the phoenix … it certainly signifies the resurrection of the body.’ See also Fitzpatrick, , De Ave Phoenice, pp. 27–30Google Scholar, and the introduction to ‘The Phoenix: a Critical Edition’, ed. Joseph B. Trahern, Jr (unpub. thesis, Princeton, 1963)Google Scholar, for a complete account of the patristic sources.

Page 167 note 3 Blake, (The Phoenix, ed. Blake, N. F. (Manchester, 1964), pp. 33–5Google Scholar) expresses disappointment with the poem. (All quotations are taken from this edition.) Those who would insist upon an overly schematic interpretation of the poem include Cross (‘Conception of the Old English Phoenix’), whose analysis, while illuminating in many respects, falls prey to the urgency of logical explication. Cross concludes that the poet wrote The Phoenix with an exegetical purpose in mind and embodied in the poem a fourfold meaning based on scriptural examples. Here (pp. 135–6) ‘the representation of the Phoenix as the good Christian in his earthly nest is a moral or tropological interpretation, the bird as Christian in his heavenly dwelling is an analogical interpretation, and the bird as Christ is a typical or allegorical interpretation’. See also Kantrowitz, Joanne S., ‘The Anglo-Saxon Phoenix and Tradition’, PQ 43 (1964), 1–13Google Scholar; Kantrowitz attempts to erect an allegory based on traditional meanings of the worm, the apple and the eagle.

Page 168 note 1 See Burlin, Robert B., The Old English ‘Advent’: a TypologicalCommentary (New Haven and London, 1968), p. 34Google Scholar; Burlin makes some very pertinent remarks on the flexibility of the medieval imagination in regard to the symbol of the phoenix.

Page 168 note 2 The moment when the phoenix came to be associated with paradise is lost in our mythic memory, though Blake (ed., p. 16) offers some tentative suggestions.

Page 169 note 1 Graf, Miti 1, 40 and 42. Interestingly, this emphasis on beauty in the descriptions of paradise and of the phoenix is the dominant tone in the twelfth-century ‘Phoenix homily’; see Early English Homilies from the Twelfth Century MS. Vesp. D. xiv, ed. Warner, Rubie D-N., Early English Text Society o.s. 152 (London, 1917), 146–7.Google Scholar

Page 169 note 2 ‘He did not say, and God threw forth [caused to grow] from the earth one tree or another, but he said, “He threw forth every tree that was beautiful to look at and good to eat”‘ (De Genesi ad Litteram, PL 34, col. 374).

Page 169 note 3 See Graf, Miti 1, 19.

Page 169 note 4 ‘No one keeps us from understanding paradise as the life of the blessed’ (De Civitate Dei, PL 41, col. 394).

Page 169 note 5 ‘We have said that the plantation of God, that is, paradise in Eden, in the delights of eternal and blessed happiness, is human nature created in the image of God’ (De Divisione Naturæ, PL 122, col. 829).

Page 169 note 6 ‘For God is a great artisan in great things in such a way that he is not less in small things: these small things are to be measured not by their own greatness (for there is none), but by the wisdom of their maker’ (De Civitate Dei, PL 41, col. 335).

Page 169 note 7 ‘… from earthly things to heavenly things and from visible to invisible, some good things are better than others; and for this end they are unequal, in order that they might all exist’ (Ibid.).

Page 169 note 8 See Ringbom, Lars-Ivar, Paradisus Terresfris: Myt, Bild och Verkligbet (Helsingfors, 1958), p. 57, pl. 19Google Scholar. Here in an enlarged detail from a fourth-century mosaic one can see most clearly the three worlds of earth, paradise and heaven juxtaposed in tiers that illustrate the ascending order of beauty.

Page 170 note 1 Blake (‘Some Problems of Interpretation’, p. 58) writes: ‘the correspondence between good works and the fruits of the earth (herefrætwe) shows that at lines 609–10 we ought to translate fægrum frætwum by “good works”. Just as the phoenix sits in its nest surrounded by the fairest fruits and spices (204–7), so also the blessed in heaven are girt with their own good works.’ In omitting any reference to ‘ornaments’ he allows his gloss of frætwe to be governed too narrowly by his own allegorical interpretation.

Page 170 note 2 The poet uses frætwe in several contexts. He uses the word concerning both paradise (73b, 116b and 150b) and the phoenix (239a, 274a, 309a, 330a and 335a); he also uses it with reference to the sun (95b), the phoenix's nest (200b) and the blessed souls (585a and 610a). Twice he applies it to the earth (257a and 508a), but these are special cases; see below, p. 177.

Page 170 note 3 Graf, Miti 1, 40–1.

Page 170 note 4 Wrenn, C. L. (A Study of Old English Literature (London and Toronto, 1967), p. 132Google Scholar) mentions that in the description of paradise there is ‘more colour than usual’, but he does not notice how specific images of beauty predominate.

Page 172 note 1 ‘As soon as yellow Aurora rising turns red, as soon as she puts to flight the stars with her rosy light, twelve times [the phoenix] immerses her body into the holy water, twelve times [the phoenix] drinks water from the living flood’ (35–9).

Page 172 note 2 ‘She begins to pour forth the harmony of sacred song and to arouse new light with her wonderful voice’ (45–6).

Page 173 note 1 Trahern (‘The Phoenix’, p. 146) writes: ‘The song sung by the blessed souls here is a paraphrase of biblical quotations and liturgy. The beginning is an adaptation of Apocalypse vii. 12, “Benediction, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and strength to our God for ever and ever.” The poet combines this with a paraphrase of the Tersanctus, which in turn rests upon Isaiah vi. 3, “Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of hosts, all the earth is full of His glory.”’

Page 173 note 2 Since Lactantius employs the same order, we may question Cross's contention (‘Conception of the Old English Phoenix’, p. 145) that the Old English poet went to the De Ave Pboenice simply for the best description available. If that were the case, there would seem to be no necessity to follow the order of the Latin as well. Also the actual description of the phoenix hardly corresponds to Lactantius's, as we shall see.

Page 173 note 3 ‘Some Problems of Interpretation’, pp. 56–7.

Page 177 note 1 See Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana 1, for his commentary on the use and abuse of nature.

Page 180 note 1 ‘Paradise is the church; so indeed we read concerning that in the Song of Songs: “The enclosed garden is my sister”’ (Quæstiones super Genesim, PL 93, col. 269). For an interesting discussion of the symbolism of paradise and the church in another Old English poem, see Hoffman, Richard L., ‘Structure, Symbolism and Theme in The Judgment Day II’, Neopbilologus 52 (1968), 170–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 181 note 1 ‘If therefore the flesh of the bird rises from its own ashes, will not the flesh of man rise from his own ashes?’ (De Trinitate Tractatus, PL 17, col. 575).