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Christ and Satan: A Critical Edition ed. by Robert Emmett Finnegan

1980; University of Western Ontario Libraries; Volume: 6; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/esc.1980.0035

1913-4835

Raymond St.-Jacques,

Medieval Literature and History

R E V I E W S Christ and Satan: A Critical Edition, ed. Robert Emmett Finnegan (Water­ loo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1977). xi, 169. $7.00 Finnegan’s edition contains four introductory chapters, the text of Christ and Satan, explanatory notes, a glossary recording and identifying all forms used in the poem, an appendix on the poet’s use of rhetorical figures as set out in Bede’s De schematibus et tropis, and a selected bibliography. In his lengthy description of the manuscript in Chapter 1, the editor is content to summarize existing opinions, especially those of Gollancz, even to repeating Gollancz’s assertion that the folding of the inner leaves of quire seventeen preceded the writing, a view refuted by Clubb in his convincing 1928 M LN paper. However, Finnegan does make some interesting sugges­ tions, for example that the small capitals in the text of Christ and Satan are used to mark major shifts of emphasis, point of view, or subject matter. He concludes with the conjecture that the original design of the Junius manu­ script was to present illustrations of the “ages of man” with Christ and Satan as representative of the sixth age, but that the work as planned was never completed. Chapter 11, “The Problem of Unity,” more correctly a study of the poem’s themes and structure, is largely an abbreviation of Finnegan’s stimulating 1969 Classica et Medievalia paper and of parts of his 1969 doc­ toral dissertation. He explains the poet’s use of different kinds of poetry in the light of homiletic practices, where exempla are first narrated then expli­ cated and moralized for the audience. The narrative-dramatic sections of Parts 1 and n (lines 1-662) progressively reveal facets of Christ’s character, especially His justice and mercy, while the hortatory verses stress the implica­ tions for the conduct of man’s life. There remains the need, however, to anchor these somewhat broad moral generalizations to further concrete examples, the function of Part hi (lines 663-729), Christ’s temptation, which offers men a perfect model of Christian rejection of evil, sufficiently selfexplanatory to require no clarifying hortatory section. Paralleling and supportE n g l is h St u d ie s in C anada, vi, 2, Summer 1980 ing the development of Christ’s character in the narrative sections of the poem, Finnegan would like to see a temporal movement in the poem’s struc­ ture from a point “out of time” in Part i celebrating Christ’s divine justice and power in His defeat of the rebellious angels, to a point in historical time in Part m celebrating both His divinity and humanity. However, since the events narrated in Part n also occur in “historical time,” as Finnegan himself admits, the grand temporal design he claims to perceive does not stand up to close scrutiny. Nevertheless, Finnegan’s arguments for the artistic unity of the work are the most convincing thus far presented. The chapter on sources seeks to “reconstruct the ideational atmosphere within which the poet composed.” Those traditional materials which one would normally expect the poet to have had access to for his verses on the angelic fall, the nature of hell, and the character of Satan are reviewed. (Readers will wish to supplement this section with Thomas J. Hill’s 1977 ]E G P paper, which appeared too late for use here). The editor also provides a useful, detailed comparison of the Harrowing of Hell episode in the poem and in the Gospel of Nichodemus. Although the poet uses most of his ma­ terials conventionally, Finnegan does find striking departures from tradition in the poet’s handling of the temptation of Christ. Chapter iv on language contains a detailed phonological and morphological analysis, but Finnegan’s discussion clearly reflects Sisam’s hypothesis that it is not possible to deter­ mine the dialect in which any longer piece of Old English poetry was written. He extends this view to dating on linguistic grounds but does suggest, on the basis of the poem’s thematic content and external evidence, that the poem may have been composed between a .d . 792 and 820, when the...