The Destroyer Of Souls: The Rhetoric Of Fear In Old English Literature

Abstract

This dissertation explores representations of fear in Old English literature and examines their rhetorical purposes. Although Anglo-Saxon writers were often unconcerned with or even hostile to the use of rhetorical techniques, I argue that Anglo-Saxons, particularly in their vernacular texts, tailor their writing to appeal to their audiences in specific ways. As such, this writing should be read as highly rhetorical. Reference to fear and fearful imagery in these texts play an important rhetorical role. Fear places the Anglo-Saxon subject in a world defined along rigid lines between Christian and Pagan, legal subject and outlaw, human and monster, recorded and forgotten, kept and lost. But at the same time as the rhetoric of fear establishes these rigid lines, the fear expressed in these texts often reflects anxiety about the stability of the traditions and practices that create them. This dissertation examines texts from a variety of genres and contexts, including homilies, saints' lives. The depictions of fear in these texts sometimes confirms, sometimes challenges, the dominant ideologies of Anglo-Saxon England. The Anglo-Saxon rhetoric of fear expresses a set of anxieties at the center of Anglo-Saxon civilization: looking backward was the comfort of tradition marred by the threat of paganism. Looking forward was the stark possibility of an earthly future of ruin and exile. Anglo-Saxon texts turn to religious traditions in order to assuage these anxieties, but this tradition could often only answer by appealing to fear. The analysis of these texts focuses on the rhetorical attempts to balance the comfort and the terror which are found side by side whenever a speaker makes an appeal to tradition.