The Phoenix and the Interlingual Dimensions of Early English Literary Culture

Abstract

The literary culture of early medieval England was thoroughly bilingual: prose and poetry were composed in Latin and Old English.2 Prose in Latin survives in greater quantity than prose in Old English while the numbers for poetry are more evenly split: 270 Anglo-Latin poems are extant compared to 244 Old English poems, by one reckoning.3 It is not enough, however, to note the coexistence of these two languages and their circulation (jointly or separately) in manuscript. Early English literary culture was not simply the “sum” of its Old English and Latin “parts” but was also rather more. Each language was involved with the other behind the scenes, as scholarship on pre-Conquest poetry has made especially clear. Many poets who composed verse in Old English would also have known Latin—the more prestigious, more institutional language.4 By the same token, Latin verse did not exist in a vacuum: certain prosodic features in the Latin poetry of Aldhelm, for instance, are thought to have been inspired by vernacular poetry.5 The copresence of both languages is palpable and can be sought, even in nominally “single-language” verse.But what about the mixed-language poetry of early medieval England? What does it reveal of the inner workings of this bilingual literary culture, beyond the readily gleanable observation that Latin and Old English were both languages of literacy? One admittedly wishes for a larger data set to consider in mulling over the question. The corpus of surviving pre-Conquest mixed-language verse consists primarily of the three “major” such poems: The Phoenix concludes with eleven Old English-Latin verse lines (if Alleluia counts as Latin, more on which below); the poem Aldhelm combines Latin, Old English, and some Greek; and the poem known as A Summons to Prayer mixes Latin and Old English evenly.6 Some other bilingual verse has survived, such as the Latin-English proverbs preserved in both London, British Library MS Cotton Faustina A. X and London, British Library MS Royal B. 2. V.7 Yet one might have expected to inherit a more robust body of mixed-language verse from such a bilingually literate and literately bilingual culture. More—perhaps much more—may have been lost.But other testaments to the fundamental, indeed material bilingualism of early English poetry do survive. One excellent example might come as a surprise, in light of its given name: the “Exeter Book of Old English poetry” (Exeter, Dean and Chapter MS 3501) has a notable amount of Latin—certainly the most versified Latin of any of the four “Old English poetic codices.”8 Riddle 90’s five lines are entirely Latin; they are joined by the Latin half lines of The Phoenix and also by the half line lux et tenebre (l. 100b) in the poem alternately titled Azarias or Canticle of the Three Youths.9 There is also the Finit at the end of Homiletic Fragment III and The Partridge as well as the phrase sancta Hierusalem at Christ I line 50b. While Latin is not structurally constitutive of all these works in the way it is for the three mixed-language poems named above, it is nevertheless a consistent presence in the Exeter Book: texts ranging from a single Latin word to an entire Latin work can be found in the manuscript.Another kind of proof of the Exeter Book's deep Latinity is the fact that the volume is full of direct translations from Latin and has other obvious dependences on Latin literature. We can be confident that most of the poets whose work it preserves were bilingual to a considerable degree. Christ I, for instance, is a loose rendering of the Latin Advent antiphons, and Guthlac B is based closely on the final chapters of Felix of Crowland's Latin vita.10Canticle of the Three Youths derives from deuterocanonical Biblical content.11 In addition to its mixed-language conclusion, the first half of The Phoenix is a loose translation of the Late Antique poet Lactantius’ De ave phoenice.12 Michael Lapidge has proposed a specific manuscript of the acta sanctorum as the one (or very like the one) from which Cynewulf may have been working as he adapted the Latin text for the Old English Juliana.13Vainglory stands in the tradition of Prudentius's Psychomachia.14 Patrick W. Conner has incisively situated The Riming Poem within the realm of complex Anglo-Latin hermeneutic verse, and the three animal poems—The Panther, The Whale, and The Partridge—together enact an English version of the Latin physiologus genre, as has long been noted.15 Even in less obviously Latinate texts, Latin remains a relevant context: Lindy Brady has recently proposed a twelfth-century Latin vita as an analogue for Wulf and Eadwacer.16 Although though they are in the vernacular, the Exeter Book riddles are, in the words of Andy Orchard, “intimately connected” to the Latin riddles, even “parts of the same literary tradition.”17 The poem known as Pharaoh is based on the Biblical Book of Exodus, and the Lord's Prayer is a translation—a very loose translation—from the Latin.18 And these are only some of the more obvious examples. The Latin of the Exeter Book is, on aggregate, both visible and invisible, surface-level and structural. We should speak, then, not of an Exeter Book of Old English poetry but rather of an Exeter Book that stands as sterling witness to the bilingual poetic culture of early England.If the two primary corpora of pre-Conquest mixed-language verse were to be set out in a Venn diagram, the circles would overlap at The Phoenix. It is one of the few mixed-language poems to survive from early medieval England, and it is one of the poems in the Exeter Book that is at least a partial translation of a Latin source. It is therefore particularly well positioned to illuminate the possibility and potential of this bilingual literary culture, to reveal how language choice could itself be a skillfully deployed literary act—in other words, to answer the question I pose above: what can mixed-language pre-Conquest verse reveal of the inner workings of this bilingual literary culture?The bilingual ending of The Phoenix offers one answer by engaging what I call the “interlingual mode”: a style of writing—either poetry or prose—that operates in two or more languages at once. As I shall demonstrate, the first and final lines in the conclusion of The Phoenix do not shuttle back and forth between Old English and Latin as much as they exist in both languages simultaneously. They thereby reward the reader who does not simply code-switch but instead thinks more extendedly in the two languages in unison—interlingually, in so many words—so as to receive some kind of payoff in each, and thus in both.19 In my use of the prefix “inter-,” I envision something closer to the imbricated separation conjured by “interstitial” or “intergalactic” rather than the fused connection implied by “intermarriage” or “interstate.” Accordingly, I identify the interlingual mode, as it operates in this poem, to be the product of conscious effort on the part of the Phoenix poet to construct poetic lines that remain thematically resonant with—add additional layers of meaning to—the larger work upon being mentally translated by the reader into the text's “other” language. The copresence of both languages is crucial, as is their difference from one another: it is their difference that invites comparison and makes their ultimate harmony all the more significant.My understanding of the “interlingual mode” is informed by and indebted to, even as it diverges from, previous theorizations of a hybrid “interlingualism” by scholars of multilingualism and of Chicanx language mixing in particular. The similarities and differences between these concepts, which each name a kind of linguistic interaction in a multilingual culture (and share a prefix in so doing), are instructive and illuminating. “Interlingualism” and the “interlingual mode” are both rooted in a form of “both/and” multilingualism, though the two phenomena differ based on how fundamentally distinct the component languages are assumed to be.20 In Chicanx communities, “interlingualism” most often refers to, in Juan Bruce-Novoa's words, “the mixing of two languages [here, Spanish and English] . . . because the two languages are put into a state of tension which produces a third, an ‘inter’ possibility of languages.”21 He elaborates elsewhere: This practice rejects the supposed need to maintain English and Spanish separate in exclusive codes, but rather sees them as reservoirs of primary material to be molded together as needed, naturally, in the manner of common speech. This interlingual form is the true native language of Chicano communities, even though some members speak only English or only Spanish—as a whole, the language spectrum covers these and every potential blend.22While interlingualism encompasses an entire “spectrum” of language use, the interlingual mode acknowledges and upholds the component languages as separate codes, each with attendant affiliations and associations.23 Put another way, instead of asking interlocutors and readers to dwell in a hybrid linguistic space, as Bruce-Novoa argues that Chicanx communities and writers do, the interlingual mode of The Phoenix asks readers to inhabit two distinct language spaces simultaneously, as one primary language draws on the resources of a copresent second language in order to achieve certain ends.24I suggest, furthermore, that the interlingual mode in The Phoenix is mobilized to religious, indeed eschatological ends. By encouraging the reader to think in two languages at once, the poem moves the reader closer the language of an that makes the of all the more and out this this the of a kind of literary for the a that could exist in the between Latin and Old English because it was both Latin and Old In early medieval England, the possibility of the was to be as the between words to meaning on the as the between Old English verse so could the between languages be a of in the English the first half of its The Phoenix the of a in an in its the and of this within the realm of The are for the in on of this like that of in the how with the of the they in this the and for in the on Phoenix poet in from Latin have long known that the first half of the poem is a loose translation of De ave composed by the poet in the or The Phoenix poet also on other Latin for the second half of the poem, though which these were is less well and a on to the and other have recently been The of some of the primary has a body of scholarship on the translation particularly in the first half of the The conclusion is that the Phoenix poet a and to it as a of a text and it with mixed-language conclusion of The however, is not the of it does not from a single but instead the of And what he has composed is the final eleven the half line the is Old English, and the half line the is Latin Alleluia as a I in in et et of light has to that might to with in might the and on the in the of light and of have of upon the of and and to with the this the Latin the of the Old English it the in every the Latin also its with of the half lines as Some of furthermore, to have been poetic in as has both and in both and they (or also both in This offers about the and it the possibility that other common poetic and literary Latin or Old be in these on Latin and on Latin at the conclusion of over lines of Old English verse also the poet that the Latin and Old English poetic could be the Latin and Old English of the poem are the languages each particularly in of their poetic The of Latin with vernacular verse the in the Latin and vernacular In the the line of Old English poetic as in the poem as a whole, an of Latin material is as Old English as the Latin lines are by Old English in this so are the Latinate of and the by vernacular the of And as these Latin lines are adapted into the of Old English verse, so are the Latinate in the poem into the of the most of the poem, in other words, the Phoenix poet Latin poetic into Old English poetic in the conclusion, both are on the of and this of the of The Phoenix by how and put together this of the as the two poetic the linguistic of this final also the between the two By on the literary of Latin and Old English, these lines beyond the poetic and the to the realm of the the reader who is the mixed-language of the poem with the line of light has to (l. the Phoenix poet with an interlingual a to the fact that he is and working in two The Latin of a name for more or less in Old English as And being by the phrase of in Old English poetry a of The half its The on a meaning in that first with the work of and the and the of to the phrase is a of direct to in and the Guthlac it in to in Guthlac the found it The also in of the Old English which Book of the Latin In this the Old English the Latin text's of and refers instead to the as thereby as of and of he of the of for as long as he wishes to this can is and the is in of Old English verse, the poetic is most for it is known and the line (l. the at the of the that in Old English poetry would to an that as the of the Old English is into The also works to in a kind of in the text of The this first line only that something not what he has The of is in the conclusion to The it is not that is being but rather The of the the that can but the is in the first line of the two languages but nevertheless to who their Old The poet is in Old English and Latin simultaneously, and to the the is expected to do the of is the with and so does it Early English writers often to and complex so it is to in a the final line of The the (l. one its of and it refers to the most example of in early English upon the of England from the or in a The is rooted in the similarities between and and between and both and Alleluia the in the of is the of these and affiliations was in early medieval The is in two Latin texts, which may have of one another: the and The in of the is to a back and . . . from within by he from what they . . . they from come are he of he is the name of the of that And they And he for of should be version in the is more but more with the difference being of on to on the name of the he for Alleluia to be them to be so that they might and of the a to to the of the the it as a the and it by should to the about that has been to by were a of and to who translated the into English In is how many from the of early British their in tradition to the and of the words in which they were There is preserved or more example than these is The Phoenix the only Old English poem to the The in the final line of The Phoenix is out in a in Guthlac on how Guthlac the The Phoenix asks to the from to this in Guthlac B “the and asks to think of The of this is by the in the in both Guthlac A and the of the that the English has been made by the In the of this one one it the the two in The Phoenix poet would have expected to the connection he for Phoenix poet that and could a the of the would the upon the of and Alleluia in the final an informed reader would have been to the both and the of the is as the reader think back to Old English poetic to in the first line of this so they the of to whose whose is at in the It is their interlingual mode is thus to the it and a on which the may be I should note that engaging the interlingual mode is not for understanding the meaning about what between Old English and Latin while What an interlingual of the offers is to the that it is the of the at This meaning is to the reader who not only what all the words but who also how the words are in the other languages of a text's and can the literary The interlingual it the to into Old English, and to the Old English poetic more involved for an of the on of the such as and on the (l. The which the reader to think between is the which in the work from the is And the interlingual and only into is also Latin with all its for its is a both text and It itself also as a to think as the Alleluia may its use is not In this is its only in Old English verse it being in the one more in prose and The also by in Old English not the to three in the for The is by to and certain poetic in the One of these is as Alleluia is often as something or situated in a This would with the by the as that he Alleluia be the It also with the in the an Alleluia is an conclusion to a poem that is full of It is only in the half line that the Alleluia also the poem with an interlingual a into Old English as well as Latin, was an of in early medieval England for its as a In the Alleluia is as In the in for that is word is on and is a word that in Latin, the and language is as as should Alleluia not into English but Latin what for the of Latin to even as he in the same was more in the of translation in of and and one to the that the call and the Latin call and the English of and of I suggest, both to or at least their to language. what has as to a of By might be with of of languages to separate and like . . . from readers who can only identify with It is who works to a of and whose of the and like . . . from readers who can only identify with be would have been readily to with even in their of and are out of more like each This it was both (and thus not in need of would have been to and of linguistic (and thus the of The of by and reveal that Alleluia was a word of known and in early medieval England, and for a it would have the of not only the that makes the interlingual but within the of a single the of the interlingual in a multilingual culture, words can their translations with them and can their in another the literate of these interlingual which upon a of Latin, English, and at least one word of is the in the which an interlingual The and are to to The and of the deployed in this the conclusion as a distinct that acknowledges the of linguistic even as it the of the is with a and a and these are more than the of the the of these that they would have thereby of a The that for understanding the with the poem as particularly is The in manuscript is from the of and it was a separate from the of the work by of its use of use of language literate these not only but also The of for the two A vernacular is for the Old English half by the Latin half lines are in an that for a reader would have conjured how Latin to these would be and as separate is into the of this this linguistic however, is the vernacular verse The Old English and Latin each a in and of but the of the entire is the text of Old English I this choice of a vernacular over a one not as a of the the with Latin is more obvious than rather as a of the could in two at in the interlingual mode, a text's in manuscript can between Old English and Latin because it is both Old English and it is as that the Alleluia is a and A it is as Latin because it is in the same as the As I above, Alleluia is a word that itself to the interlingual mode, and in the manuscript it has been given a linguistic not its it is not only the of the Alleluia but also the of its that the interlingual of the so on the specific as it the word into and the in the word the between Alleluia and the This Alleluia is a material of the with its of word and Latin form as well as its of as a single This is interlingual made simply a poetic the interlingual mode work for The its and its the of the mixed-language with its interlingual a between the languages in the the Latin of the poem is to the A kind of with the is The Old English translation from Latin in the first half of the poem is in the second by Old English in part on other Latin In the of the conclusion, the in is by another in the between the two they each the two words in interlingual and in the first line and in the have been especially for the Exeter Book's English who for I note that of this are out over the of the the same for the who might be as the of the three that these eleven are and in a of the in an interlingual they into but are not The reader do more work to to to a understanding of the and its interlingual mode, then, stands as a even a particularly English of the or deployed in of in the first by that a or is such a not at least the of its the with a of what a or the at in De ave a that the Old English poet on and has the of the within The from to the mixed-language of the and the more of and that have beyond into the of is in observation that the is at long a of but not has been remain and a of interlingual is to The interlingual mode, which draws on the resources of distinct languages simultaneously, a way to or at least the and language that was the of as as one can to the of the in the interlingual with separate languages so as to at the final line of The the poet of to the interlingual workings to have at and in both Latin and The Phoenix is thus witness to a mode of interlingualism that was within early English literary culture, a culture that was Latin and English and the for The interlingual mode may have as a form of poetic to the the name recently to the by which a of Old English verse offers its readers of the of Latin The mode offers its the to Latin in Old English is that a poem as it might have a Latin The mode, then, is to a Latin of an Old English poem By the interlingual mode on the that the think languages as they that they be for their early English writers a way to the literary potential of a bilingual culture and to it to their And both as to the a one in the how the two languages might be together in and resonant In the of the interlingual mode, an and kind of was The can how it