JULIANA AND THE WANDERER SIDE BY SIDE — ARCHITECTURAL SYMBOLISM IN THE EXETER BOOK

Abstract

This paper deals with architectural symbols in two Old English poems preserved in the Exeter Book, namely Cynewulf’s Juliana and The Wanderer, one of the so-called Old English elegies written by an anonymous author. Since those two poems stand next to each in the manuscript, and since they are characterised by similar symbolism rich in images of walls, keeps and ruins, we shall analyse them as works the collector perhaps wanted to be read as a pair. In our analysis, we follow the current trends in Old English literary studies of viewing Anglo-Saxon manuscripts as the fruit of monastic labour and an ideal context for understanding Old English poetry, if we are to step away from the hermeneutic readings and attempt to establish a more probable reading, from the point of view of the intended mediaeval audience. We rely primarily on John D. Nile’s book God’s Exiles and English Verse: On The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry (2019), the most recent and the first of its kind study of the Exeter Book itself, but we also follow the strategies of other recent studies of manuscripts such as the Vercelli Book and Junius 11, which also put an emphasis on the need for a holistic approach to mediaeval documents as well as mediaeval literacy and manuscript compounding practices (Reading 2018; Ericksen 2021). By establishing firm connections between the two poems and seeing how they complement each other in regard to symbolism and themes, we shall come a step closer to discovering new possible interpretations of both texts, perhaps those the compiler had in mind. Throughout the study, we approach our sources from the point of view of the most likely reader, as described by Niles (2019), in whose hands the document would have fallen during or after its compilation, that is, a monk in a Benedictine environment which encourages readings inspired by homiletic literature. Furthermore, we view literature symbol not as a mutable sign with endless potential for meaning largely dependent on the author’s style and whim as we are nowadays accustomed to, but as it was in mediaeval literature — a sign belonging to a well-defined and well-known set of polysemic images charged with metonymic potential and meaning that allows and forces the poet to adapt and recast it in a wide variety of creative ways to achieve a fresh literary effect still grounded in tradition, which the Anglo-Saxon poet sought to propagate, not reinvent.