The Dream of the Rood Cover fran’s gran’s?
Re-visioning Anglo-Saxon Poetry This publication brings together work produced in workshops held at King’s College London on 12, 13, and 17 October 2016, entitled ‘Playing with Medieval Visions, Sounds and Sensations’. The purpose of the sessions was to encourage creative interaction with medieval culture. The workshops took their focus as the Old English poem known as The Dream of the Rood and Geoffrey Chaucer’s House of Fame. The Dream of the Rood survives in a single late-tenth-century manuscript, although it shares some text with the Ruthwell Monument and the Brussels Cross, two earlier pieces of sculptural art. The House of Fame is one of Chaucer’s most celebrated texts and was written in the second half of the fourteenth century. The two poems share an interest in memory, textual, verbal, and material culture, and the creative possibilities of the imagination. Participants in the workshops were asked to respond to and remake the poems according to their own interests, practices and desires. This booklet brings together some of the work produced in the workshops on The Dream of the Rood.
Organised by Fran Allfrey, with Francesca Brooks, Carl Kears, Charlotte Knight, Charlotte Rudman, and Beth Whalley. ‘Playing with Medieval Visions, Sounds and Sensations’ was part of King’s College London’s Arts & Humanities Festival 2016, supported by the Arts & Humanities Research Institute and the Centre for Late Antique & Medieval Studies.
Hwæt , ic swefna cyst secgan wylle, hwæt me gemætte to midre nihte, syðþan reordberend reste wunedon . Þuhte me þæt ic gesawe syllicre treow on lyft lædan , leohte bewunden , beama beorhtost . Eall þætbeacen wæs begoten mid golde; gimmas stodon fægere æt foldan sceatum , swylce þær fife wæron uppe on þūm eaxlegespanne . Beheoldon þær engel Dryhtnes ealle fægere þurh forðgesceaft ; ne wæs ðær huru fracodes gealga, ac hine þær beheoldon halige gastas, men ofer moldan and eall þeos mære gesceaft.
Beautiful was that triumph-tree, and I coloured with sin, wounded with evils. I saw that tree of glory adorned with garments, shining beautifully, clothed in gold; gems had Wound splendidly around the ruler’s tree. Yet I, through that gold, could see the ancient struggles of wretched souls when it first began to bleed on the right side. I was all troubled with sorrows; I was fearful for that fair sight; I saw that changing beacon shift its garments and colours: sometimes it was streaming with water, soaked with flowing blood, sometimes it was dressed with treasures. (BW)
Some lines from the Dream of the Rood 1-12, 13-23, 46-55a Collaborators at King’s College, London, 12 and 17 October 2016