Exeter Book

Contents

Aside from eight leaves added to the codex after it was written, the Exeter Book consists entirely of poetry. However, unlike the Junius manuscript, which is dedicated to biblically inspired works, the Exeter Book is noted for the unmatched diversity of genres among its contents, as well as their generally high level of poetic quality.[12]

The poems give a sense of the intellectual sophistication of Anglo-Saxon literary culture. They include numerous saints’ lives, gnomic verses, and wisdom poems, in addition to almost a hundred riddles, numerous smaller heroic poems, and a quantity of elegiac verse. The moving elegies and enigmatic riddles are the most famous of the Exeter Book texts.[11] The elegies primarily explore the themes of alienation, loss, the passage of time, desolation, and death, and deal with subjects including the sorrows of exile, the ruination of the past, and the long separation of lovers. Through them we encounter lonely seafarers, banished wanderers, and mournful lovers.[6][11] The riddles, by contrast, explore the fabric of the world through the prism of the everyday. (See the sections on 'Riddles' and 'Elegies' below.) The Exeter manuscript is also important because it contains two poems signed by the poet Cynewulf, who is one of only twelve Old English poets known to us by name.[11]

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "the arrangement of the poems appears to be haphazard, and the book is believed to be copied from an earlier collection".[6] However, whether (or the extent to which) the Exeter Book is a deliberately crafted anthology of related poems or a miscellany of unrelated poems is a matter of debate, as some degree of order has been found in the organisation of its contents.[3]

None of the poems is given a title in the manuscript, and there is often no obvious indicator of where one text ends and the next begins, other than a plain initial. Consequently, the titles given to the poems in the Exeter Book are those that editors have established over the years, and very often a given poem will be known by several titles.[12] The following is one listing of poems found in the book (titles may vary depending on source):[3][13][19]

  • Christ I, II, III
  • Guthlac A and B
  • Azarias
  • The Phoenix
  • Juliana
  • The Wanderer
  • The Gifts of Men
  • Precepts
  • The Seafarer
  • Vainglory
  • Widsith
  • The Fortunes of Men
  • Maxims I
  • The Order of the World
  • The Rhyming Poem
  • The Panther
  • The Whale
  • The Partridge
  • Soul and Body II
  • Deor
  • Wulf and Eadwacer
  • Riddles 1-57[3]/59[19]
  • The Wife's Lament
  • The Judgment Day I
  • Resignation
  • The Descent into Hell
  • Alms-Giving
  • Pharaoh
  • The Lord’s Prayer I
  • Homiletic Fragment II
  • Riddle 28b[3] / 30b[19]
  • Riddle 58[3] / 60[19]
  • The Husband's Message
  • The Ruin
  • Riddles 59-91[3] / 61-95[19]

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