The Old English Catalogue Poems

A brief word about the plan of this book may prove helpful at the start. The Introduction raises a series of questions about the catalogue as a poetic structure and the encyclopedia as a literary genre. Designed to challenge certain modern critical assumptions, these questions will prepare for a reinterpretation of the encyclopedia and the catalogue. The opening chapter is devoted to the Latin encyclopedia tradition as represented by Pliny the Elder, Cassiodorus Senator and Isidore of Seville. I have considered the works of these writers in considerable detail out of the conviction that they should not be reduced to a single, uniform type. In their diversity and richness, both encyclopedia and catalogue resist any form of schematic interpretation. If we assume from the start that they are merely formulaic, they will remain closed to us. If, however, we consider the historical and literary reasons for their existence, then both forms will reveal their utility and even at times their beauty. When read carefully, the Latin encyclopedias and their catalogues offer a set of principles by which to appreciate the internal order and utility of catalogues in Old English poetry. To argue for some specific and unvarying relation between the encyclopedic and the poetic catalogue, however, would be to misinterpret both types. I have sought instead to read each example of catalogue form according to the particular subject and purpose of the work in which it appears. I have found that the catalogue will elude the critic who approaches it in a single-minded or inflexible fashion. Instead, each catalogue must be explored and valued as a response to a unique literary need. For this reason, I have grouped the Old English poems either by their content ('The Menologium' and 'The Fates of the Apostles' in Chapter 2; 'Widsith' and 'Deor' in Chapter 5) or by their fundamental unit of expression ('The Gifts of Men' and 'The Fortunes of Men' in Chapter 3; 'Precepts' and 'Maxims' I & II in Chapter 4).