Soul and Body
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"Soul and Body" is one of the few surviving poems written in Old English that exists in two separate versions. These two versions survive in two different manuscript collections of poetry. These two collections are known as the Vercelli Book (Soul and Body I), and the Exeter Book (Soul and Body II). The numbers I and II refer to modern assignments to each poem to differentiate between the two different versions the sources provide us with.
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[edit] Description
In both versions, the poem is written from the perspective of a damned soul to its body. The setting is after death, but before Last Judgment. The damned soul accuses the body of neglecting the fate of the soul, settling for mere worldly passions. The damned soul relents in lieu of its own terrible judgment, but the body cannot answer, as it is busy being torn apart by worms. The poet goes on to describe the gruesome details of the fate of the body as it is devoured by worms. Soul and Body I ends with an additional correspondence between a blessed soul to its body, as it anticipates the resurrection of the body where the two will reunite in the Eschaton.
Soul and Body II, on the other hand, ends with the sorry fate of the damned soul and its former body. Both poems, despite their differences, are meant to foster in the reader a sense of urgency to reflect on the fate of their own soul, to stop living according to the mere passions of the flesh.
[edit] Origins
Soul and Body appears to have been written sometime in the second half of the 10th century either in the province of West Saxon or Kent. Soul and Body II was written sometime between the second half of the 10th century and the first half of the 11th century in the province of West Saxon. Neither Soul and Body I nor Soul and Body II appear to be the original source, both appear to have been subjected to significant redaction somewhere along the line.
Some scholars believe the original source to be from simply oral transmission, and others believe it to be from a lost written source. At any rate, it appears that the happy ending to Soul and Body I, with the correspondence between the blessed soul and its body, is an addition to the original, whatever its source.
Aside from the two versions provided in the Exeter Book and the Vercelli Book, there are no other sources for the poems, however there are several parallels in other works that seem to imply that the poem either influenced or was influenced by a similar image. Soul and Body I, from the Vercelli Book, is 166 lines long. Soul and Body II, from the Exeter Book, is 126 lines. The poem does show signs of Irish influence due to the eschatological beliefs presented, namely the claim that the sinful body of the damned soul is punished in number according to its 365 joints. Style and phraseology have been noted to have parallels in other Old English texts as the two Solomon and Saturn poems, the Solomon and Saturn Pater Noster Dialogue, and Vercelli Homily IV. These are all thought to have their origins in an Irish-influenced Mercian literary school during the reign of Æthelstan on the basis of the language and their content.
[edit] Purpose
Most scholars believe the poem to have been used pedagogically, and most scholarly criticism (which is scarce) expresses distaste for its explicit details. On the other hand, the poem’s construction is often admired, and its theological usage is at least coherent.
[edit] References
Anderson, James E. "Deor, Wulf and Eadwacer, and The Soul’s Address: How and Where the Old English Exeter Book Riddles Begin." The Old English Elegies: New Essays in Criticism and Research, ed. Martin Green. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickenson University Press, 1983, pp. 204-30.
Ferguson, Mary Howard. "The Structure of the Soul’s Address to the Body in Old English." Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 69 (1970): 72-80.
Frantzen, Allen J. "The Body in Soul and Body I." ChauR 17 (1982): 76-88.
Hill, Thomas D. ‘Punishment According to the Joints of the Body in the OE Soul and Body’, Notes and Queries 213 (1968), 409-10 and 214 (1969), 246.
The Old English ‘Soul and Body’, ed. And trans. D. Moffat (Woodbridge, 1990).
