Dream of the Rood Critical Essay | Critical Essay by John V. Fleming

Critical Essay by John V. Fleming

SOURCE: "The Dream of the Rood and Anglo-Saxon Monasticism," in Traditio, Vol. XXII, 1966, pp. 43-72.

Below, Fleming examines the characters, language, and themes of The Dream of the Rood, calling the poem "a carved celebration of the monastic ideals" of English Benedictinism.

The earliest text of The Dream of the Rood consists of a few lines of runic inscriptions carved around the edges of a North English high cross now at Ruthwell in Dumfriesshire. It represents no more than a fragment of the text as we find it in the Vercelli MS, a short passage describing the Crucifixion and the ordeal of the Cross. The precise relationship between the Ruthwell runes and the Vercelli poem is a matter of conjecture and dispute. To some critics the Ruthwell inscriptions represent an 'earlier poem,' of which the Vercelli text is an expansion or a later revision or both. It is a...
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