Reading the Anglo-Saxon Self Through the Vercelli Book by Amity Reading (review)

In recent decades medievalists have challenged the theory that the Renaissance gave rise to “the invention of the self,” or subjectivity, pointing to the competing claims of the twelfth century. In this tightly focused study, however, Amity Reading highlights a pronounced interest in selfhood and agency in a selection of Old English texts of unknown date copied in the tenth century Vercelli Book. Building on the investigations into the complex Old English lexis of mind-heart-soul by Malcolm Godden, Leslie Lockett, and others, Reading the Anglo-Saxon Self explores how the authors of these texts use the language of subjectivity “for parenetic [i.e. hortatory] purposes” (p. 17). The works under consideration are broadly linked by their concern with the interaction of the body and soul, both before and after death, as well as related themes such as baptism, penance, bodily resurrection, and Judgment.

In the Introduction (pp. 1–32), Reading proposes that the Vercelli compiler was not only interested in eschatological themes (as argued by Éamonn Ó Carragáin and Milton McC. Gatch) but also in the “construction and performance of the self” (p. 2). This theme is most evident, Reading argues, in the manuscript’s various iterations of the popular soul-and-body motif, which typically take the form of a dialogue between the soul and body after death. After tracing this tradition back to the vision of St. Macarius and the Visio Pauli, Reading challenges Caroline Walker Bynum’s assertion that all medieval thinkers assumed a soul-body dualism, noting that Old English witnesses often present a more nuanced model of interdependence and collaboration. By focusing on the complex and sustained interaction of souls and bodies across the Vercelli Book, she seeks to demonstrate that this manuscript is “not a book about Judgment, but rather a guide to Judgment,” in other words “a handbook for Christian being” (p. 20).

Chapter 1 (pp. 33–60) highlights the symbiotic relationship between flesh and spirit in Vercelli Homilies IV and XXII and the poem Soul and Body I. In a series of nuanced close readings, grounded in careful comparison with Latin sources and analogues, Reading shows how these texts illustrate both “positive and negative outcomes proceeding from the relationship between the soul and body” (pp. 44–45). Homily IV, for example, describes the joyful reunion of soul and body on Judgment Day, while Soul and Body I takes a more positive view of the uses of the flesh than its Exeter Book counterpart.

Chapter 2 (pp. 61–83) narrows the focus to a single text, the verse saint’s life Andreas, connecting its metaphorical representation of baptism with the manuscript’s wider interest in resurrection and eschatology. Instead of reading this poem as a pious rewrite of Beowulf, this chapter provides a welcome and stimulating analysis of Andreas on its own terms. Concentrating on “incomplete typological structures” (p. 63), Reading shows how Andreas models the “continuing reform or renewal [ . . .] of the Christian self” (p. 63) through the ongoing conversion of its fallible hero.

The third chapter (pp. 85–116) discusses a group of texts linked by the themes of Ascension and Rogation, in both of which we witness the “participation of the Christian self in the community” (p. 85). The Dream of the Rood is fruitfully read in the light of Ambrose’s teaching on baptism and Ascension. By consistently identifying Christ, the Cross, and the Dreamer with each other, the poem creates “a sense of absorption, completion, unification, all of which are inherent themes of Ascension” (p. 92). Intriguingly, Reading suggests that the compiler decided not to include an Ascension homily because The Dream of the Rood effectively already served as one (p. 104). Homilies X, XI, XXI, are found to be significantly more interested in “material, performative piety” (p. 98) than their Latin sources, presenting images of celestial fellowship and completion that complement the imagery of the...