"What a long, strange trip it's been": Narration, Movement and Revelation in the Old English Andreas

The journey of Andrew to Mermedonia to save his fellow apostle Matthew from the devil-worshipping, cannibalistic inhabitants of that land is, perhaps, the inverse of a pilgrimage: instead of going willingly, Andrew must be chastised and goaded by God; instead of journeying to a holy place, Andrew travels to an unholy one; and instead of strengthening his own faith, he converts others.¹ Yet, the tactics of the narrator of the poem encourage the audience to witness the acts of Andrew and take a journey of the mind, which is designed at first to allow them to witness, then to participate in the recreation of the Andreas story. In this paper, I argue that the key technique the Andreas-poet employs to create tension and drama – and more importantly, to facilitate an epiphany in the minds of the audience – is his style of narration, which is episodic and based on a system of concealing and then later revealing identities in the poem. Each revelation of identity forces the audience to perceive rather than to know the character, which is similar to the Shklovskian idea of defamiliarization, according to which the technique of art is "to increase the difficulty and length of perception."² The poem consists of four episodes in which the identity of someone is concealed, only to be revealed later; the first three instances of revelation occur only within the characters as the audience witnesses them, but the key moment of revelation concerns the identity and the role of the narrator, which occurs in a short passage at lines 1478-89a and moves the audience beyond passive consumption of the poem to active participation in creating meaning from the narrative. After watching various characters move from knowing – which, in each case, means not understanding but an incorrect or incomplete assumption about the identity of another character – to perceiving: to retroactively understanding through prolonged meditation. The end result of this pattern of concealment and revelation is that the mimetic and linear narrative of Andrew's journey is transformed into a cognitive, non-linear journey that loops back upon itself but has enlightenment as its goal.³ Since the narrator's self-revelation is the key to understanding this pattern, I will begin with this passage and then move to the earlier instances of concealment and revelation.

Nearly 1,500 lines into the 1722 line poem, the narrator, who has been hidden behind the narrative and unobtrusive to this point, reveals himself to the audience and comments upon his art. The passage reads as follows:

Hwæt, ic hwile nu     haliges lare,

leoðgiddinga,     lof þæs þe worhte,

wordum wemde,     wyrd undyrne

ofer min gemet.     Mycel is to secganne,

langsum leornung,     þæt he in life adreag,

eall æfter orde.     þæt scell æglæwra

mann on moldan     þonne ic me tælige

findan on ferðe,     þæt fram fruman cunne

eall þa earfeðo     þe he mid elne adreah,

grimra guða.     Hwæðre git sceolon

lytlum sticcum     leoðworda dæl

furður reccan.

(Andreas 1478-89a)

Listen! For a while now I have been announcing in words of poetry the story of the holy one, revealed fact exceeding my capacity. There is a lot to say, a protracted lesson about all that he achieved in life from the beginning. That shall require a person more learned in lore than I count myself, to find it within his intellect to know from the beginning all the difficulties, the grim battles, that he endured with courage. However, we must gradually narrate a little more poetry in small portions.⁴

It is not uncommon, in Old English poetry, for the narrator to reveal himself while relating his story.⁵ What is unique about this revelatory passage in Andreas is that it comes so late in the poem, after the audience has had a majority of Andrew's story revealed to them, but before the narrative is complete. After presenting a nearly seamless mimetic narrative, the narrator finds it necessary to reveal his art and to call into question...