SOURCE: "Christ the Victor-Vanquished in The Dream of the Rood, " in Neuphilologische Mitteilungen: Bulletin de la Société Né'ophilologique, Vol. LXX, 1969, pp. 667-72.

In the excerpt below, Macrae-Gibson focuses on the transformations of the Christ-figure in The Dream of the Rood.

Huppé Details the Structure of the Dream of the Rood:

The basic design of the Dream of the Rood is clear. It consists of four scenes: I, 1-23, the vision; II, 24-77, the narrative of the Cross; III, 78-121, the peroration and exhortation of the Cross; IV, 122-156, the dreamer's prayer to Cross and Christ. However, this relatively simple frame supports an elaborate rhetorical structure in which a series of striking antitheses is developed. The antitheses derive basically from the juxtaposition, the communicatio idiomatum, of the two aspects of Christ as God and man. In the Crucifixion, Christ suffered as man, but without diminishing his godhead...