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The Exeter Harrowing of Hell: A Re-interpretation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Genevieve Crotty
Genevieve Crotty*
Affiliation:
Queens College
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Extract

Among the numerous pieces of verse in the Exeter Book, one to which comparatively little critical attention has been devoted is the Harrowing of Hell. The only special studies of this poem were made many years ago, by J. H. Kirkland and Julius Cramer, though it has, of course, been discussed more or less casually in the several recent editions of the Exeter Codex.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , June 1939 , pp. 349 - 358
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1939

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References

1 James H. Kirkland, A Study of the Anglo-Saxon Poem “The Harrowing of Hell” (Halle, 1888).

2 Cramer, Julius, Quelle, Verfasser, und Text des Altenglischen Gedichten “Christi Höllenfahrt;” Anglia Zeitschrift für Englische Philologie, Bd. xix (Halle, 1899).Google Scholar

3 G. P. Krapp and E. V. K. Dobbie, The Exeter Book; Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, Vol. iii (New York, 1936); R. W. Chambers, M. Förster, and R. Flower, The Exeter Book of Old English Poetry (London, 1933); C. W. M. Grein and R. P. Wülcker, Bibliothek des Angelsächsichen Poesie, Erster Band (Leipzig, 1898), pp. 175–181; W. E. Mackie, The Exeter Book, EETS, Original Series (London, 1934), no. 194.

4 Richard P. Wülcker, Das Evangelium Nicodemi in der Abendländischen Literatur (Paderborn-Marburg, 1872).

5 Bergin, O. J., “Translation of the text of the Harrowing of Hell, as found in the Book of Fermoy,” Eriu (Dublin, 1908), pp. 112–119.Google Scholar

6 Dom A. B. Kuypers, The Book of Cerne (Cambridge, 1902).

7 Atkinson, R., The Leabhar Breac, Royal Academy, Todd Lecture Series (Dublin, 1887), ii, 142–151.Google Scholar

8 Thwaites, Edward, Heptateuchus, Liber Job, Evangelium Nicodemi; Anglo-Saxonice (Oxford, 1698).Google Scholar

9 James W. Bright, An Anglo-Saxon Reader (New York, 1891), pp. 129–141. This is a partial text which begins with Part n of the Gospel Of Nicodemus (Descensus ad Inferos).

10 The line numbering corresponds to the text of the edition by G. P. Krapp and E. V. K. Dobbie.

11 The translation of several of the Anglo-Saxon passages has been added to facilitate reading of the article. “Our Saviour had promised me, when he would send me on this journey, that he would seek me after six months, the prince of all people. The time has now passed. I most assuredly expect, and account it certain, that today the Lord Himself will seek us, the victorious Son of God.”

12 “The King rode in, the Prince of all people hastened on, the glorious Lord of hosts.”

13 Morris, R., The Blickling Homilies, EETS, Original Series (London, 1876), No. 63, pp. 83–97.Google Scholar

14 Max Förster, Archiv, cxvi (Braunschweig, 1906), pp. 301 ff.

15 Migne, J. P. Patrologia Latina (Paris, 1800), xxxix, cols. 2059 ff.Google Scholar

16 Kuypers, Dom A. B., op. cit., pp. 197–198.Google Scholar

17 Cf. Rudolph Willard, PMLA, xlii (1927), 314–330; “Two Apocrypha in Old English Homilies”; Beiträge zur Englischen Philologie, Vol. xxx (Leipzig, 1935).

18 “Then John saw the victorious Son of God enter Hell in royal majesty. Then the sadhearted man perceived that God Himself had come. He saw the doors of Hell shine brightly, which long before had been locked, enveloped with darkness. The hero was joyful.”

19 “Then the chief of the city-dwellers spoke out boldly and valiantly before the multitude, and spoke to his kinsman and greeted the welcome guest with words.”

20 Cramer, Julius, op. cit., p. 3.Google Scholar

21 Holthausen, Ferdinand, “Zur Altenglischen Literatur,” Anglia, Beiblatt xix (Halle, 1908), pp. 49–53.Google Scholar

22 Krapp and Dobbie, op. cit.

23 Ibid., pp. 166–167.

24 Charles, R. H., Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, ii, 135.Google Scholar

25 “I have suffered much since that time when Thou didst once come to me, when Thou didst give me sword and corselet, helm and armor, which I have ever since held.”

26 Morris, R., op. cit., pp. 165–167.Google Scholar

27 “Oh, dearest men! What a zealous messenger and impatient leader was he who would first proclaim the Lord's coming on this earth before he attained to the mysterious formation of the natural birth; and he first became a leader and grasped a weapon with which to fight before he was endowed with his bodily limbs.”

28 Mingana, Alphonse, “Woodbrooke Studies in Christian Documents in Syriac, Arabic and Garshuni,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, ii (Manchester, July, 1927), 342–349, 438–461.Google Scholar

29 Cook, A. S., The Christ of Cynewulf (Boston, 1900), pp. xxxv-xliii.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., pp. 180–181.

31 Cf. the facsimile of page 125a of the Exeter Book (EETS ed.) ut and eft (line 2), hyht (line 15), and eft (line 18).

32 Cook's Sievers' Old English Grammar, §363, Note 1: “The Early West Saxon documents have a few sporadic instances of ‘-on’ for ‘-an’; in Kent Glosses the former are somewhat more numerous, and they occur sporadically in less pure West Saxon texts. In Psalms ‘-an’ is entirely stable. Rushworth I has, beside predominant ‘-an’, rarely ‘-en’, ‘-on’, ‘-un’, besides shortened forms in ‘-e’, more rarely ‘-a’, ‘-ae’.'

33 Blackburn, Francis A., Exodus and Daniel (Boston and London, 1907).Google Scholar