Leslie Lockett - Anglo-Saxon Psychologies in the Vernacular and Latin Traditions

ANGLO-SAXON PSYCHOLOGIES IN
THE VERNACULAR AND LATIN TRADITIONS

Old English verse and prose depict the human mind as a corporeal entity located in the chest cavity, susceptible to spatial and thermal changes corresponding to psychological states: it was thought that emotions such as rage, grief, and yearning could cause the contents of the chest to grow warm, boil, or be constricted by pressure. While readers usually assume the metaphorical nature of such literary images, Leslie Lockett, in Anglo-Saxon Psychologies in the Vernacular and Latin Traditions, argues that these depictions usually served as literal representations of Anglo-Saxon folk psychology.

Lockett analyses both well-studied and little-known texts, including Insular Latin grammars, The Ruin, the Old English Soliloquies, The Rhyming Poem, and the writings of Patrick, Bishop of Dublin. She demonstrates that the Platonist-Christian theory of the incorporeal mind was known to very few Anglo-Saxons throughout most of the period, while the concept of the mind-in-the-heart remained widespread. Anglo-Saxon Psychologies in the Vernacular and Latin Traditions examines the interactions of rival and incompatible concepts of the mind in a highly original way.

(Toronto Anglo-Saxon Series)

LESLIE LOCKETT is an assistant professor in the Department of English at The Ohio State University.

LESLIE LOCKETT

University of Toronto Press 2011
Toronto Buffalo London
www.utppublishing.com
Printed in the U.S.A.

Reprinted in paperback 2017

ISBN 978-1-4426-4217-1 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-4875-2228-5 (paper)

Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Lockett, Leslie, 1974
Anglo-Saxon psychologies in the vernacular and Latin traditions / Leslie Lockett.

(Toronto Anglo Saxon series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4426-4217-1 (bound). ISBN 978-1-4875-2228-5 (paperback)

1. English literature Old English, ca. 4501100 History and criticism. 2. Psychology in literature. 3. Mind and body in literature.I. Title. II. Series: Toronto Anglo-Saxon series

PR179.P79L63 2011 829'.09353 C2010-907474-2

University of Toronto Press gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, in the publication of this book.

Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the Medieval Academy of America.

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

Contents

Heartfelt gratitude is due to the faculty and librarians of the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame, who nurtured my diffuse interests and taught me how to pursue them, especially Stephen Gersh, Calvin Bower, Jill Mann, Tom Noble, and Maura Nolan. For their stimulating insights and encouragement over the past several years I extend warm thanks to Tom Hall, Miranda Wilcox, Britt Mize, and Owen Phelan. Since coming to The Ohio State University I have been fortunate to enjoy the friendship and guidance of many talented colleagues, among whom I wish particularly to thank Marlene Longenecker, Lisa Kiser, Ethan Knapp, Richard Green, Karen Winstead, and David Herman. Helpful criticisms from these colleagues and from the anonymous readers for the Press have rooted out many errors and infelicities from this book; those that remain are entirely my own. Special gratitude is due to librarian Anne Fields and to the Interlibrary Loan staff at The Ohio State University, and to Valerie Lee, who as chair of the English Department showed me enormous patience and kindness when it was sorely needed.

For the resources, both time and funding, that have helped me bring this project to fruition, I am indebted to the University of Notre Dame, The Ohio State University, the University of Toronto Centre for Medieval Studies, and the Medieval Academy of America, which granted me a dissertation fellowship and a publication subvention. For permission to print the image on the book jacket I wish to thank Christine Ritchie, Librarian of University College, Oxford. And for their expertise and flexibility, I wish to thank editors Suzanne Rancourt and Barb Porter and copyeditor Miriam Skey of the University of Toronto Press.

There are three persons for whom I can scarcely begin to articulate the depth of my gratitude, affection, and admiration. Michael Lapidge and Katherine OBrien OKeeffe co-directed my dissertation; they were and continue to be rigorous teachers, inspiring mentors, and generous friends. My husband Drew Jones has, through countless hours of conversation, helped me hone my arguments and fine-tune my writing. More importantly, he has given me a happy home in which to study and write.

I dedicate this book to the memory of my father.

Throughout this study, translations of Latin, Old English, and Old Saxon texts are my own except where specified otherwise. Where no edition is specified in the footnotes, quotations of Old English verse follow Krapp and Dobbie (eds), Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, except for quotations of Beowulf, which follow Klaeber. Quotations of the Bible are taken from Weber et al. (eds), Biblia Sacra iuxta vulgatam versionem, and English translations of the Vulgate follow The Holy Bible: Douay-Rheims Version; in the discussion of the Hebrew biblical idiom in , however, I have relied upon Metzger and Murphy (eds), The New Oxford Annotated Bible, to supply passages not quoted in my secondary sources.

In quoting from editions of ancient and medieval texts, I have silently regularized certain features of capitalization (especially when quoting the Vulgate) and punctuation (especially in the quotations of parallel definitions of the noun in