The reader might anticipate from the title, "Ingeld and Christ", that Professor Cherniss's book, a rewrite of his dissertation with two added chapters, will sort out and contrast the pagan and Christian elements in Old English poetry.
The author's thesis is that in Old English poetry, the "heroic" elements are eventually almost totally displaced by Christian ones. In chapters two through five he isolates "a small group of concepts, closely related to one another, central to secular Germanic heroic thought and, it is hoped, readily identifiable as being pre-Christian..."
In the second part of the book the author discusses familiar poetic texts according to the relative presence, absence, or displacement of these pre-Christian norms of loyalty, vengeance, treasure, and exile.
Author(s): Michael D. Cherniss
Series: Studies in English Literature, 74
Publisher: Mouton & Co
Year: 1972
Language: English
Pages: 268
City: The Hague
I. Introduction 7
II. Loyalty: the Foundation of Germanic Heroic Society 30
III. Vengeance: The Demonstration of Loyalty in Action 60
IV. Treasure: The Material Symbol of Human Worth 79
V. Exile: The Epitome of Misfortune in Heroic Life 102
VI. Heroic Poetry and "Beowulf" 120
VII. "Genesis B" 151
VIII. "Andreas" 171
IX. "Juliana" and "The Seafarer" 194
X. "Christ II" and "Guthlac A" 218
XI. "Christ III", "Guthlac B", "Judgment Day II":
Conclusions 235
Bibliography 258
Index 263
